No. 23 @MizzouBaseball Pushes Win Streak to 18, Wins Series at Alabama

Saturday, March 18

Tuscaloosa, Ala.

1:00 PM

University of Missouri

18-1, 2-0

Alabama

10-9, 0-2

Mizzou

Alabama

No. 23 @MizzouBaseball Pushes Win Streak to 18, Wins Series at Alabama

3/18/2017 4:59:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Brumfield tallies five hits in the win to back solid pitching, defense

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – No. 23 Mizzou Baseball defeated Alabama, 7-4, on Saturday afternoon (March 18) at Sewell-Thomas Stadium to push its national-best winning streak to 18 games. The win streak is the second-longest streak in school history while the 18-1 record is the best start in the history of the program. The Tigers have also won their first SEC series since April 29-May 1 last season when they swept Tennessee. It is Mizzou's first SEC road series win since April 1-3 at Arkansas a year ago. Mizzou is now 18-1 and 2-0 in SEC play.

Sophomore OF Connor Brumfield (Columbia, Mo.) tallied a career-high five hits to lead an offense that pounded out 12 hits and drew eight walks. He is the second Tiger with a five-hit game this season after Mizzou had not accomplished that feat since 2011. Junior Robbie Glendinning (Scarborough, Australia) went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and freshman OF Kameron Misner (Polar Bluff, Mo.) also drove in two runs.

Junior LHP Michael Plassmeyer (St. Louis, Mo.) earned his fourth win of the year after going 5.0 innings, striking out three while allowing just three earned runs and Mizzou has now won all five of his starts this season. Alabama LHP Dylan Duarte took the loss as the Tide fall to 10-9 (0-2 SEC).

For the second consecutive game, Brumfield led off the contest with hit, this time a triple into deep left center. He scored on a Brett Bond (St. Louis, Mo.) sacrifice fly to give Mizzou a 1-0 lead. Misner then hit a two-out, RBI single to give Mizzou a 2-0 lead. The Tigers saw 48 pitchers off Duarte in the first. Plassmeyer then came out and cruised through the first on 11 pitches.

HIGHLIGHTS: Watch how #Mizzou pushed its national-best winning streak to 18. #MIZ #C2E ??? pic.twitter.com/0x2jrYc5vl
— #MizzouBaseball (@MizzouBaseball) March 18, 2017

Alabama got its first run of the series on a solo homer by C Kyle Kaufman with two outs in the bottom of the second, cutting the lead to 2-1. Mizzou got that run back in the fourth on an RBI bunt single from Brumfield and that knocked Duarte out of the game as Mizzou took a 3-1 lead. Junior Robbie Glendinning (Scarborough, Australia) then nearly cleared the bases with a liner into the right centerfield gap, but it was run down as he had to settle for a sacrifice fly. That gave Mizzou a 4-1 lead.

Alabama hit back-to-back, two-out double in the fourth to score a run, cutting the lead to 4-2 and then got an RBI single up the middle to cut the lead to 4-3. Mizzou stretched the lead to four runs with a three-spot in the sixth inning, taking advantage of three hits and three walks in the inning.

Junior RHP Nolan Gromacki (Smithville, Mo.) relived Plassmeyer in the sixth inning and was helped out by two tremendous plays by Ian Nelson (Lake St. Louis, Mo.), who entered the game in that inning as a defensive replacement. He pitched two perfect innings, picking up a pair of strikeouts.

Sophomore LHP Ty Shoaff (Akron, Ohio) came on in the eighth and he walked the leadoff man. Alabama wound up loading the bases with no outs, but Mizzou limited the damage as Misner ran down three hard hit balls into left, allowing just one run to score. Mizzou led 7-4 moving to the ninth. Cole Bartlett (Williamsburg, Ind.) closed the door from there.

Mizzou will be back in action tomorrow, looking for the sweep at noon. For all the latest on Mizzou Baseball, stay tuned to MUTigers.com and follow the team on Twitter (@MizzouBaseball) and like the team on Facebook and Instagram (Mizzou Baseball and missouri_baseball, respectively).

Potent Quotables

Head Coach Steve Bieser
Opening Statement…
"Well played game by the guys today. You know, when I talk, it's about the process. This is how we want to continue to play Tiger baseball. I thought we did a good job on all three fronts, from pitching to defense to offense. Proud of the way that they came out relaxed today and responded."

Notes

Mizzou has now won 18 consecutive games, the longest active streak in the nation and the second-longest streak in school history, trailing only the 1964 team what won 19 in a row.
Mizzou now leads the all-time series with Alabama, 5-4.
At 18-1, Mizzou is off to its best start in program history.
Mizzou earned its first SEC series win since April 29-May 1 of last year when Mizzou swept Tennessee. It is Mizzou's first road SEC series win since April 1-3 at Arkansas last year.
Sophomore OF Connor Brumfield hit a triple to lead off the game Saturday, the second consecutive game he has tallied a leadoff hit. He now has a team-leading three triple on the year.
Brumfield tallied his seventh multi-hit game of the season, hitting safely in his first two plate appearances.
His five-hit performance is just one off of the school record of six hits and is the second five-hit performance by Mizzou this season. Mizzou had not had a five-hit performance since 2011 before doing so twice this year. It is also a Sewell-Thomas Stadium record.
OF Kameron Misner extending hit an RBI single in the first and has now reached base safely in 11 straight games.
1B Brian Sharp singled in the sixth inning to extend his hitting streak to nine games.