University of Missouri
Baylor
Mizzou Advances to Big 12 Championship Game
5/29/2004 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 29, 2004
ARLINGTON, Texas-- - Missouri has advanced to its first Big 12 Conference Championship game, by defeating Baylor 10-7 at Ameriquest Field in Arlington, Texas in Saturday's semifinal. It will be the first conference championship game for the Tigers since it lost to Oklahoma State in the 1989 Big Eight title game.
Mizzou has won its last seven games and will face Oklahoma State, which defeated Texas on Saturday to advance to Sunday. The championship game will start at 1 p.m. on Sunday in Arlington and will be broadcast on Fox Sports Net. Just last weekend, Mizzou recorded a three-game sweep of the Cowboys in the final series of the regular season.
The Tigers opened up against Baylor by retiring the Bears in order in the top of the first, then put three runs on the board in their half of the inning. They had four consecutive hits, including back-to-back doubles from seniors Ryan Rallo and Lee Laskowski. Laskowski's double drove in Rallo and was followed by a single by senior Cody Ehlers, which scored Laskowski. Ehlers would score later in the inning on a sacrifice fly by senior Jeremy Hernandez.
The Bears used a four-run fourth inning to take the lead away from MU. Baylor had five hits, three of which were doubles in the inning including a 2-run double by Josh Ford and an RBI-double off the bat of Mike Pankratz.
Sophomore James Boone gave Mizzou the lead back, as he connected for his fourth home run of the season, a two-run shot in the bottom of the fourth inning to left center to give the Tigers a 5-4 lead. MU would add another run in the inning, with the help of two Baylor errors. An error by the Bears' rightfielder allowed freshman Gary Arndt to reach and advanced all the way to third base. He would then score on an error by the third baseman on a ground ball hit by sophomore Trevor Helms.
Boone would score again in the bottom of the sixth. Arndt singled with one out to drive in Boone from second base after Boone had reached on a fielder's choice and moved to second when sophomore Tyler Williams walked.
The game was tied again after the Bears scored three runs in the top of the seventh inning. All three runs were unearned after a Tiger error allowed the inning to continue.
Once again the BU lead was short-lived as the Tigers scored three runs of its own in the bottom of the seventh, with the biggest hit being a two-run homer by Ehlers, his second of the tournament and his 17th of the season. He moves into fourth place by himself on MU's career home run list with 36.
Senior Mark Alexander came on for the final 2.2 innings and did allow a run while giving up just one hit to take the win and move to 4-0 on the year. It was Alexander's 33rd appearance on the season, setting a new school record.
Along with the Fox Sports Net broadcast, the ZRG Radio Network (1580 KTGR in Columbia) will carry the game with Tex Little and Luke Cassis providing the commentary. The broadcasts can also be heard online www.KTGR.com and Live Gametracker is available at www.mutigers.com.
