Saint Louis University is headed to the post-season for the first time since 1966 after crushing St. Bonaventure 7-0 in the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament Championship Sunday. The Billikens blasted open a 0-0 tie by scoring all seven of their runs in the top of the ninth inning.
Bill Musselman’s three run homer broke the knot, as the Billikens rallied for four more runs in the inning. Starting pitcher Ryan Byrd threw eight innings of shut-out ball for SLU, allowing five hits and three walks. Eric Mueller replaced him in the bottom of the ninth and worked around a walk to close it out.
The Billikens, which are 32-27 will only have to learn where they’re going when the NCAA announces the regional seedings on Monday.
The Missouri Tigers lost to their arch-rivals on Saturday and saw their hopes of a Big 12 Championship as the seventh seed end. They fell 4-3 to the seventh-seeded Kansas Jayahwks MU got down 3-0 early on and bounced back with two runs in the seventh and one more in the eighth, to tie it. But KU’s Brock Simpson scored from third base in the bottom of the eighth, thanks to two MU errors. MU dropped to 31-25 and will now have to wait for good news from the NCAA, as it announces the 48-team field for this week’s NCAA Baseball Regionals. KU went on to beat Nebraska 9-7 in the Big 12 Championship on Sunday.
The Missouri St. Bears missed both chances to win the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament on Saturday. They lost the first game to Evansville 8-4, then lost 2-1 in the night cap, as the Purple Aces grabbed the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The first loss ended their 10-game winning streak and the second game dropped them to 33-22. They’ll now have to await word from the NCAA as to whether or not they’ll get an at-large bid to the NCAA Regionals.