ROLLA, Mo. – On a windy afternoon at the S&T Ballpark, the Miner baseball team came away with a split of its Great Lakes Valley Conference doubleheader with Bellarmine by taking the second game by a count of 15-5. The Knights, thanks in part to five home runs in the final four innings, won the opener 11-3.
The Miners (27-14, 19-10 GLVC) scored in each of the first five innings of the nightcap, including a seven-run third inning, to bounce back after a loss that snapped their season-high seven-game winning streak. The scoring began with a pair of unearned runs in the first, as
Will Hayes (Terre Haute, IN/South Vigo) and
Jason Volkmann (Liberty, MO/Liberty) led off with hits and Hayes scored when a pickoff throw to third went off the glove of third baseman Jacob Mulcahy.
Later in the inning,
Zach Bracken (Berthoud, CO/Berthoud) delivered a two-out hit to score Volkmann, then the Miners extended their lead to 3-0 in the second on a sacrifice fly by Hayes that brought home
Doug Wood (Liberty, MO/Liberty North).
Bellarmine (25-19, 16-14 GLVC) scored three times in the third, tying the score on a two-run homer by Matthew Higgins, but the Miners answered back in a big way in the bottom half of the frame as they sent 11 batters to the plate and scored seven times.
Following a walk to
Matt Gruse (Neenah, WI/Neenah) and a wild pickoff throw to send him to second,
Matt Knickerbocker (Bayfield, CO/Bayfield) singled through the right side to score Gruse with the go-ahead run. S&T did the rest of the damage in the inning with two outs.
Keegan Baxmeyer (Waterloo, IL/Freeburg) singled home Knickerbocker before a pair of walks loaded the bases in front of Hayes, who reached on an infield single to bring another run across. Volkmann drew a walk to force in a run, then Gruse singled into center to drive in two; another run was able to score after centerfielder Alex Phillips overran the ball.
S&T's other five runs scored via the long ball, as Baxmeyer belted a three-run homer in the fourth and
Kaleb Reid (Smithville, MO/Smithville) hit a two-run shot in the fifth.
Dalton Erger (Imperial, MO/Seckman) was the recipient of the offensive support, as he scattered five hits and struck out eight over six innings to pick up his sixth win of the season. The Miners outhit Bellarmine 13-6 in the second game with five different Miners getting two hits apiece.
The Miners had the lead in the opener as well, scoring runs in the second on an RBI single by Wood and in the fourth when Bracken drove in Reid with an RBI single. After the Knights cut the margin in half in the fifth, they took the lead in the sixth on a two-run homer hit by Clayton Mehlbauer.
Zac Wiley homered for the Knights in the seventh, then the Miners got back to within a run in the bottom of the inning when Hayes and Volkmann executed a double steal. However, the tying run was stranded on third and the Knights broke the game open with a four-run eighth and a two-run ninth, hitting three more home runs along the way.
The Knights had 17 hits in game one to eight for S&T, who got two apiece from Hayes, Reid and Bracken.
Luke Marcheschi (Bloomington, IL/Central Catholic) was tagged with the loss on the mound.
S&T and Bellarmine, who combined for 10 home runs in Saturday's doubleheader, will wrap up their weekend series with a single game Sunday beginning at noon.
