ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's baseball team opened its final Great Lakes Valley Conference series Saturday by splitting a doubleheader at Missouri-St. Louis, taking the opener 4-3 but dropping the second game 4-0 to the host Tritons.

With the split Saturday, the Miners moved one game closer to Quincy for third place – and the final guaranteed playoff spot out of the GLVC's West Division – as the Hawks were swept in a doubleheader by Southern Indiana. Quincy will host USI for two more games Sunday. S&T also remained ahead of Rockhurst by percentage points for fourth place in the division; however, Rockhurst and Maryville will not open its four-game series until Sunday afternoon. 

In the GLVC East, Saint Joseph's and Lewis split their doubleheader Sunday, leaving Lewis in fifth place at 15-14 in league play with two games left. The Miners may need a sweep Sunday at UMSL and losses from both Quincy and Rockhurst in any of their remaining games to have a chance to make the conference tournament field.

In Saturday's doubleheader, the Miners jumped on top in the top of the third in game one, getting back-to-back singles from Tim Kerouac (Bourbonnais, Ill./Bishop McNamara) and Brandon Cogan (Missouri City, Texas/Hightower) to start the inning and a one-out hit from Will Morrison (Rolla, Mo./Rolla) to score Kerouac. They extended their lead an inning later when Sam Adams (Forsyth, Mo./Forsyth) led off with a double, was sacrificed to third and came home on Louie Joseph (Bloomington, Ill./Central Catholic)'s sacrifice fly.

After the Tritons got a two-out homer from Andrew Keating in the bottom of the fourth, the Miners got the run back in the fifth when Drew Davenport (McHenry, Ill./McHenry West) hit a leadoff double and later scored on a sacrifice fly by Adams.

UMSL cut the lead down to one again in the fifth with an unearned run, but S&T got what turned out to be the decisive run in the eighth. After Joseph and Kerouac delivered singles with one out, Cogan reached on an error to load the bases. S&T then got its third sacrifice fly of the contest, this time from Davenport, to extend its lead to 4-2.

The Tritons moved to within one in the bottom of the eighth on an RBI single by pinch-hitter Kurt Driemeyer, but Zach Gronek came into the contest and after issuing a walk to load the bases, fanned Manny Flores to get S&T out of the inning.  Gronek proceeded to set the Tritons down in order in the ninth to pick up the save.

S&T outhit UMSL 10-8 in the opener, with Kerouac getting three of the hits and Cogan two. Caleb Lambert (Romulus, Mich./Inter-City Baptist) held the Tritons to three runs and six hits over seven innings to get the win, striking out five along the way. The win allowed Lambert to even his record at 5-5 on the year.

In game two, the Miner offense was shut down by UMSL's Gurdine Acklin, who blanked S&T on five hits in the contest. S&T, which had runners on base in six of the seven innings, had its best scoring chances came in the first and fifth when it had two runners on base in each inning, but stranded all four of the runners.

In the fifth, the Miners (18-32, 13-17 GLVC) had two on with two outs, but Davenport's drive to right was caught near the warning track to end the threat.

The Tritons (14-36, 10-20 GLVC) scored twice in the first off Miner starter David Birkby (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway West), then added runs in the third and fifth innings for the final margin.