KANSAS CITY, Mo. – After dropping game one of Saturday's doubleheader and being only a few outs away from being swept, Missouri S&T's baseball team staged a late inning rally to take the nightcap from Rockhurst 7-5 to ensure itself at least a split of the four-game weekend series. The Hawks took the opener 9-3.

 

Thomas McCormick (Kingwood, Texas/Kingwood) had a key hand at the plate in each of the last two innings, driving in the first run in the comeback and belting a go-ahead two-run homer in the top of the ninth that gave the Miners the lead for good.

 

S&T trailed 5-1 heading into the eighth inning, but a leadoff walk to Louie Joseph (Bloomington, Ill./Central Catholic) got the rally started. Following the free pass, McCormick doubled to the opposite field to bring home pinch-runner Matt Grundmann (Grafton, Ill./Jersey Community). McCormick was retired as he got caught coming around third after an infield single by Eaf Redden (Gunter, Texas/Gunter), but the hits kept coming for the Miners.

 

Cody Bass (Chattanooga, Okla./Chattanooga), who tied a Miner single game record with five hits in the nightcap, singled as did Will Morrison (Rolla, Mo./Rolla) to score Redden and cut the lead to 5-3, then Zach Carter (Perkins, Okla./Perkins-Tryon) followed with a double to score Bass and trim the margin to one.

 

A double play ended the eighth, but Brandon Cogan (Missouri City, Texas/Hightower)'s leadoff double in the ninth got the decisive inning started. After he was sacrificed to third by Andrew Vance (Stilwell, Kan./Blue Valley ), McCormick hit a Jeremiah Johnson pitch over the fence in right center to give the Miners their first lead since the second inning at 6-5.

 

S&T added another run later in the inning on Bass' fifth hit of the game and a triple off the bat of Morrison.

 

Bass had scored S&T's only run prior to the eighth inning when he came home on a wild pitch in the second to give the Miners a 1-0 lead. The Hawks answered with two in the second and single runs in the third, fifth and sixth innings to build the 5-1 advantage.

 

Jordan Buck (Pacific, Mo./Pacific) picked up the win in relief for the Miners, while David Birkby (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway West) picked up the save with a scoreless ninth, getting a called third strike on Tom Stevison to end the game.

 

In the opener, the Hawks used four doubles in the opening inning to run out to a 6-0 lead. Carter homered in the second to get the Miners on the board, but Rockhurst scored two more times in the bottom half of that inning.

 

Cogan drove in the other runs for the Miners with a two-run single in the fifth, but S&T managed only three hits in the game off Jeremy Pope in his complete game effort. Drew Pyles (White Lake, Mich./West Bloomfield) took the loss for the Miners, who will wrap up the series at Rockhurst with a single game Sunday afternoon.