MIAA–
It took ten innings, but Missouri Western walked off with a 1-0 victory in ten innings over Northwest Missouri in the opening round of the MIAA Baseball Tournament. Missouri Western broke a 0-0 tie as Nick Gawley singled in the bottom of the 10th inning. Gawley finished three for five and drove in the games lone run which was provided by Logan Marston.
Nate Hunter picked up the win on the mound throwing five innings of relief following a weather delay.
Lindenwood got four runs in the bottom of the sixth to break open a tie game on the way to a 13-3 win over Southwest Baptist. Rayce Singbush got his second RBI of the game driving home Kyle Teter before Wes Degener plated two with an RBI single to right center. Tyler Muehling would drive home the Paul Sherwood with a sacrifice fly to make it a 7-3 lead. The Lions would add two more in the bottom of the seventh and close out the game with a run-rule plating three in the bottom of the eighth a RBI from Behring, Muehling and Singbush.
Central Oklahoma and Central Missouri will play at 9 a.m. at Joplin High School field located at 20th and Indiana Streets in Joplin. Emporia State will face off with Missouri Southern at Warren Turner Field at the same time, 9 a.m. on the campus of Missouri Southern.
At the conclusion of the Missouri Southern/Emporia State game, all games will be played at Warren Turner Field and begin 30 minutes after the conclusion of the game before them. Games will begin at approximately noon as Southwest Baptist takes on Northwest Missouri in an elimination game. At approximately 3 p.m. Missouri Western will take on Lindenwood in a winner’s bracket game.
The winner of Emporia State and Missouri Southern will face off with the winner of Central Missouri and Central Oklahoma at approximately 6 p.m. from Warren Turner Field. In the nightcap scheduled for approximately 9 p.m. the loser of ESU/MSSU will face the loser of UCM/UCO in an elimination.
Great Lakes Valley–
The first day of the 2017 Great Lakes Valley Conference Baseball Championship Tournament is in the books, and the story of the day was the weather. After multiple field and time changes, as well as a lightning and tornado warning delay, coupled with the uncertainty of whether all games would be played at all, the first four contests were successfully completed.
Along with the weather, the other notable result from the roller coaster day was the lopsided score lines. Game 1 saw the No. 2 West seed Quincy defeat the No. 3 East seed Illinois Springfield, 10-1, at the same time that #2E Bellarmine topped #3W Missouri S&T, 13-2, in Game 2. Both of those contests began at 9 a.m. Central Time, with the Hawks and Prairie Stars playing at U.S. Baseball Park while the Knights and Miners battled across town at Meador Park.
The third game of the day did not begin until 1:45 p.m. once the teams waited out a lightning delay, as the West’s top seed Drury eventually beat No. 4E Saint Joseph’s, 9-1. In the nightcap for Game 4, #4W William Jewell pulled off the only upset of the day with a 7-3 win against the East’s top seed Southern Indiana. That game was pushed back nearly two hours due to heavy rains, lightning and a tornado warning but was able to be completed in its entirety with dry skies for the duration.
The first two contests on Friday will be elimination games. S&T and Saint Joseph’s will battle at 9 a.m. CT, followed by Illinois Springfield and Southern Indiana at 12:30 p.m. Following that second game, Bellarmine and Drury will faceoff in the winner’s portion of the bracket, currently scheduled for 4 p.m., before the 7:30 p.m. matchup between Quincy and William Jewell closes out the second day of the postseason event.
Game recaps courtesy of TheMIAA.com and GLVCSports.com
