An inning like none other in school history propelled the Missouri S&T baseball team to an 18-7 win Sunday afternoon over Augustana in the second game of a doubleheader, allowing the Miners to gain a split of the twinbill.

 

Augustana took the opener – using a big inning of its own early in the contest to build its lead – by a count of 16-10.

 

The Miners scored a school record 15 runs in the bottom of the fourth inning in the nightcap, sending 21 batters to the plate. S&T did its damage against three Viking pitchers, taking advantage of three errors and got two home runs in the frame as every player in the lineup scored.

 

S&T had taken a 1-0 lead in the third when Tim Kerouac (Bourbonnais, Ill./Bishop McNamara) scored on a passed ball, but Augustana got a two-run homer off the bat of Nate Baumann in the fourth to take a 2-1 lead. Drew Davenport (McHenry, Ill./McHenry West) led off the bottom of the fourth with a game-tying home run that only lit the fuse for the Miners' monster inning.

 

Following Davenport's homer, Andrew Vance (Stilwell, Kan./Blue Valley ) singled, then Chris Kruppe (Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley) and Kerovac both reached on errors to load the bases. Brandon Cogan (Missouri City, Texas/Hightower) followed by hitting the first home run in his Miner career, a grand slam that put S&T ahead 6-2.

 

S&T wasn't finished by any means after Cogan's slam. Cody Bass (Chattanooga, Okla./Chattanooga) doubled in two runs and Davenport hit a sacrifice fly in his second plate appearance of the inning to give the Miners a seven run lead, then Vance drove in another run with a double and later scored on a wild pitch.

 

Before the inning ended, the Miners got a run on a bases loaded walk to Louie Joseph (Bloomington, Ill./Central Catholic), two more on a double from Eaf Redden (Gunter, Texas/Gunter), another on a sacrifice fly by Bass and their last run on an error. S&T scored 10 unearned runs in the 15-run outburst.

 

The beneficiary was pitcher David Birkby (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway West), who pitched the first six innings to get the win.

 

Redden finished with four hits and three RBI in game two to finish off another huge weekend at the plate, as he went nine-of-14 in S&T's four games with eight runs batted in. Cogan and Vance also had two hits apiece as the Miners finished with 13 hits in game two.

 

In the opener, the Miners were victims of a big inning as Augustana rang up nine runs in the second and went on to the 16-10 win. S&T starter Matt Walker (St. Louis, Mo./Westminster Christian Academy) issued four walks in that inning and all four ended up scoring.

 

The Miners got one run back in the second on a double steal as Will Morrison (Rolla, Mo./Rolla) scored, then got three in the fifth on an RBI hit from Joseph, a ground out by Kerouac and an error that allowed a run to come home.

 

S&T got its offense rolling for the second game by scoring six times in the seventh of game one, highlighted by Davenport's three-run homer.

The Miners (4-4) will close the series with Augustana by playing a single game Monday at 2 p.m., then S&T will host Arkansas Tech in a noon doubleheader on Tuesday.