ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Missouri S&T took a big step towards locking up a spot in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament Sunday by sweeping a doubleheader at Missouri-St. Louis, winning the games by scores of 9-0 and 6-3.

The Miners, ranked seventh in the NCAA Division II Midwest regional rankings, improved to 15-9 in GLVC play and reached the 30-win mark for the third time in school history with Sunday's sweep.  S&T, now 30-15 overall, are tied with Rockhurst for second place in the GLVC West Division – two games in back of division leader Quincy – and are three games in front of William Jewell and Maryville with one weekend remaining in the league schedule.

The Miners jumped on top in the opening inning of game one after the first out was recorded, as Justus Nelson (Plymouth, Minn./Robbinsdale Armstrong) singled, moved around to third on Eli Miller (Shelbyville, Ill./Shelbyville)'s double and scored when Nick Ulrich (St. Louis, Mo./Vianney) reached on an error.

S&T then put two more on the board in the second as it took advantage of an error following a leadoff walk; both runners would eventually score.   Following the walk to Trevor Karbowski (Standish, Mich./Sterling Central), Tyler Johnson (Union, Mo./Union) reached base when UMSL pitcher Kyle Wilson bobbled the ball on his sacrifice bunt.

Collin Zurweller (St. Peters, Mo./Fort Zumwalt East) moved those runners ahead with a bunt, then Adam Richter (Breese, Ill./Mater Dei) singled to the opposite field to score Karbowski.  Moments later, Johnson came home when Tyler Bodenstab (Independence, Mo./Truman) reached on a fielder's choice to make it 3-0.

More defensive issues for the Tritons in the fourth helped to allow S&T to expand its lead even more.  Following Zurweller's two-out single, Richter doubled to score him and Richter went on to third as the result of an error.  Bodenstab then reached on a throwing error by the shortstop, allowing Richter to score an unearned run.

The Miners scored their sixth run in the sixth when Richter singled home Johnson, who had walked, stole second and advanced to third on the fifth of seven errors committed by the Tritons in the opener.

The Tritons' sixth error – a fielding error on a ball off the bat of Nelson – allowed a second run to score in the sixth, then Miller made it 8-0 with an RBI single.  Zurweller homered with two outs in the ninth for the final S&T run, the first home run hit by a Miner in their last 17 games.

Keith Coulson (Chesterfield, Mo./Parkway Central) allowed just four hits as he recorded his third complete game shutout of the season and improved to 8-2 on the season.

The Miner righthander induced a double play in each of the first two innings to help escape danger and had only one other inning in which more than one runner reached base – one as the result of an error – but got a strikeout and two fly balls to end that threat in the fourth

The Miners outhit the Tritons 8-4 in the game, three of them by Richter as he drove in three in the contest.

Game two also saw the Miners grab the lead in the opening inning again as Lance Portwood (Edmond, Okla./Edmond Santa Fe)'s ground out scored Bodenstab, then extended the advantage with three runs in the fourth.

Bodenstab drew a walk to start the inning and stole second, then an throwing error allowed Karbowski to reach base. Miller was hit by a pitch to load the bases before Ulrich singled past third to drive in a pair.  The third run of the inning scored when Johnson reached on a fielder's choice.

UMSL got a run back when Gian Gomez homered off S&T starter Trent Green (Perryville, Mo./Perryville) with two outs in the third, but the Miners answered back when Richter doubled in Zurweller in the fourth.  However, the Tritons cut the margin in half in the bottom half of that frame on run-scoring hits by Dominic Orlando and Nick Ulrey.

Green got through the fifth before turning the game over to the bullpen.  Luke Marcheschi (Bloomington, Ill./Central Catholic) threw three scoreless innings with four strikeouts along the way, including escaping from two-on, one-out jams in the seventh and eighth innings.

S&T picked up a huge insurance run in the ninth when Miller homered off Austin Simokaitis with two outs.  Ethan Krenning (St. Louis, Mo./Lutheran South) took over on the mound in the ninth and after allowing a leadoff walk, got a fielder's choice and a lineout double play to end it.

Bodenstab had three of the Miners' nine hits in the nightcap as Green got his first win of the season.  Krenning picked up his seventh save after retiring the Tritons (25-20, 8-16 GLVC) in the ninth.

Sunday's doubleheader sweep was the first ever for the Miners over the Tritons in St. Louis and came over a team that was immediately behind them in last week's regional rankings.

The Miners will play their final GLVC series next weekend, hosting Maryville in doubleheaders Saturday and Sunday at the S&T Ballpark.  Both twinbills are slated to begin at noon.