ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's baseball team jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the early innings Wednesday afternoon against eighth-ranked Pittsburg State, but its offense was shackled over the final seven innings as the Gorillas rallied for a 9-5 win at the Ballpark at S&T to end the Miners' record-setting winning streak at 19 games.
After the Miners – ranked 27
th in this week's American Baseball Coaches Association poll -- took the lead with a five-run outburst in the second, a parade of four Gorilla pitchers held the Miners scoreless for the rest of the afternoon to allow Pitt State to come from behind. After scoring twice in the fifth inning on a home run by Cooper Wesslund, the Gorillas grabbed the lead on a grand slam one inning later by NCAA Division II home run leader Dagen Brewer.
Brewer drove in the first run of the game in the opening inning with an RBI double, but the Miners answered back in the second by scoring five times after the first batter was retired.
Denton Damgaard (Colorado Springs, CO/Cheyenne Mountain HS) singled with one out and
Aiden Cizek (Wildwood, MO/Lafayette) walked, then after a passed ball advanced both runners,
Caleb Horsey (Springdale, AR/Springdale) put the Miners in front with a two-run single.
Will Muench (Wentzville, MO/Timberland) followed with a double over the head of Brewer in left, then
Tyler Bizzle (Festus, MO/Festus) executed a squeeze play to score Horsey with the third run of the inning.
Drew Baugus' (Kirkwood, MO/Kirkwood) double down the line in right scored Muench, then Baugus came in to score after a single off the bat of
Bricen Smith (Perry, GA/Mount de Sales Academy).
But after Smith's single that made it 5-1, the Miners had only four batters reach base over the final seven frames against the quartet of Pitt State hurlers. In the meantime, the Gorillas got the homer from Wesslund to cut the lead in half in the fifth and the grand slam by Brewer – which came S&T committed two errors earlier in the inning – to take the lead in the sixth.
Pitt State added single runs in the eighth and ninth innings to close the scoring.
Baugus, Smith and Horsey all had two hits apiece for the Miners, who were outhit 11-10 in the contest.
Scott Thompson (Greeley, CO/University), one of seven pitchers used by S&T on Wednesday, suffered the loss on the mound.
The Miner winning streak that ended Wednesday wound up tying the third-longest winning streak in Great Lakes Valley Conference history, trailing only a 29-game run by Illinois Springfield in 2018 and a 21-game string by Northern Kentucky in 1989. The Miners' run of 19 wins in succession matched a similar winning streak posted by Indianapolis early in the 1997 campaign.
The winning streak was also the second-longest in NCAA Division II heading into play on Wednesday behind a 20-game streak held by Colorado Mesa.
What's Next
Missouri S&T will return to Great Lakes Valley Conference play Friday when it opens a four-game series against Lewis in Romeoville, Ill. Friday's single game will get underway at 3 p.m.
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