No. 18 @MizzouBaseball Uses Long Ball to Tie Series with Arkansas

Saturday, March 25

Columbia, Mo.

2:00 PM

University of Missouri

21-2, 4-1

Arkansas

19-5, 4-1

Arkansas

Mizzou

No. 18 @MizzouBaseball Uses Long Ball to Tie Series with Arkansas

3/25/2017 6:11:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Glendinning, Sharp and Mompierre go deep in six-run sixth inning

Photo Gallery

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou Baseball tallied three homers as part of a six-run sixth inning to drop Arkansas, 7-2, on Saturday afternoon, evening the three-game series at one win apiece. Junior SS Robbie Glendinning (Scarborough, Australia) and sophomore 1B Brian Sharp (Liberty, Mo.) hit back-to-back homers, a two-run shot and a solo shot respectively, to kick start the sixth inning and DH Nelson Mompierre (Miami, Fla.) added a two-run homer three batters later as part of a six-run sixth inning to put the game out of reach.

Mizzou moves to 21-2 on the year while Arkansas falls to 19-5. Both teams are now 4-1 in SEC play and play the rubber game of the series at 1 p.m. Sunday. Freshman LHP T.J. Sikkema (DeWitt, Iowa) earned the win (5-0) for Mizzou and now has a win or a save in his last eight appearances (5-0, three saves). He backed a sensational start by Michael Plassmeyer (St. Louis, Mo.), who went 5.0 innings, allowing just six hits and one earned run with five strikeouts.

The story of the game was the sixth inning as Mizzou pounded out three homers, seven hits and six runs to take a 7-1 lead that it did not relinquish.

After Plassmeyer pitched around a runner-on-the-corners, one-out jam in the first inning, Mizzou got runners on the corners with no outs after a Connor Brumfield (Columbia, Mo.) walk and a Trey Harris (Powder Springs, Ga.) hit through the right side. The two then perfectly executed a double-steal to give Mizzou a 1-0 lead after one.

Arkansas tied the game on a Chad Spanberger homer in the top of the third inning. Mizzou got a leadoff double from Mompierre in the bottom of the fifth but couldn't capitalize. Sikkema took over on the mound in the sixth inning and got a sensational catch from Harris in right field as he went face-first into the wall for out No. 2. He mowed down Arkansas on eight pitches to set up Mizzou's half of the sixth.

Kameron Misner (Poplar Bluff, Mo.) singled to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning and then Glendinning and Sharp went back-to-back to give Mizzou a 4-1 lead. Mompierre then added his two-run shot to extend the lead to 6-1 as Arkansas used three pitchers in the inning. An RBI single by Misner capped the inning and gave Mizzou a 7-1 lead.

Sikkema was then lights out from there, surrendering a lone run in the eighth inning, to earn his fifth win of the season.

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
On whether he was happy with how his team bounced back after a disappoint loss Friday…
"That was the biggest thing going into the day that I wanted to see. I do believe that this club is very resilient and was expecting them to bounce back and play well today. To me that was the most exciting thing because I think when you go back and look at yesterday's game, and I had some time to look it, that was our worst-played game all season long. Then to come back and see us play what I consider to be one of our best games, from every side of it. Plassmeyer pitched outstanding. We make great plays throughout the game behind him and then to see T.J. come in and do his thing and then to see us explode and open up an inning, I thought this was the best game we've played all season long."

Game Notes:

Mizzou now leads the all-time series with Arkansas, 31-25-1.
Mizzou improves to 7-0 on Saturdays.
Sophomore OF Connor Brumfield drew a leadoff walk to open the game and has now reached base to open the last six games. He has how scored in five of those games after stealing home on Saturday in the first inning.
Brumfield has reached base safely in 11 consecutive games.
Mizzou hit back-to-back homers in the sixth inning, marking the first time Mizzou has hit back-to-back homers in a game since April 18, 2015, against Alabama. Robbie Glendinning and Brian Sharp hit the homers Saturday.
The sixth inning was Mizzou's first multi-homer inning since the fifth against Ole Miss on May 2, 2015.
Mizzou also tallied its first three-homer inning in the sixth, its first since April 18, 2015, vs. Alabama.
Mizzou tallied its 15^th 10-hit game of the season Saturday.
Mizzou has yet to lose back-to-back games this season.
Mizzou freshman LHP T.J. Sikkema saw his personal shutout inning streak of 29.2 innings come to a close Saturday.
However, Sikkema earned the win after tossing the final 4.0 innings and now has a decision (win or save) in each of his last eight appearances.