COLUMBIA, Mo. – No. 18 Mizzou Baseball dropped the rubber game of a three-game series with Arkansas, 9-8, Sunday afternoon at Taylor Stadium. Arkansas scored three runs in the second and four in the fourth to put the game away, despite a late Mizzou rally. Mizzou falls to 21-3 and 4-2 in SEC play while Arkansas goes to 20-5 and 5-1 in SEC play. Arkansas hit three homers off Mizzou pitching Sunday to clinch the series win.
Mizzou junior RHP Andy Toelken (Green Cover Springs, Fla.) took the loss after pitching 1.0+ innings, allowing four hits and three runs. Mizzou's offense was led by junior Nelson Mompierre (Miami, Fla.) who had a pair of hits, including a double, and junior OF Trey Harris (Powder Springs, Ga.) drove in three runs and scored another in the loss
Toelken worked around a two-out catcher's interference in the first inning and Mizzou got on the board in its half of the first, getting a bases-loaded sacrifice fly from Brian Sharp (Liberty, Mo.) after a nine-pitch at-bat as he flew out to the track in right center.
Arkansas got that run back in the second on a solo homer from Dominic Fletcher on a 2-1 pitch to open the inning. That kicked off a five-hit, three-run inning for Arkansas, knocking Toelken out of the game in favor of RHP Cole Bartlett (Williamsburg, Ind.).
After Bartlett got through the first two batters in the fourth inning, Arkansas got a pair of two-out hits and a big error to extend the lead to 4-1. Grant Koch then hit a three-run homer to put the Razorbacks up 7-1. All four runs were unearned following the error on what would have been the third out.
Mizzou got some of those runs back in the bottom half of the fourth on a bases-loaded, two-run single by Harris. Arkansas then got a solo homer from Carson Shaddy in the fifth inning to push the lead back to 8-3. The Razorbacks added another unearned run in the top of the seventh.
Mizzou exploded for four runs in the eighth inning, two coming on RBI groundouts and the next two on a wild pitch on a Kameron Misner (Poplar Bluff, Mo.) strikeout. Robbie Glendinning (Scarborough, Australia), representing the tying run, then nearly tied the game with a ball hit to the warning track in right center for the third out as he just missed tying the game.
Junior RHP Nolan Gromacki (Smithville, Mo.) then pitched the top of the ninth inning and Mizzou tacked on another run in the bottom of the ninth as it looked like it might rally again. Ian Nelson (Lake St. Louis, Mo.) hit a two-out single to pull within one. Connor Brumfield (Columbia, Mo.) then struck out looking with the tying run on second base as Arkansas escaped with the win.
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Potent Quotables
Head Coach Steve Bieser
On losing a close game after winning so many close games early…
"Well, it's hard to do that consistently. We put ourselves in a hole early in the game and that was the difference in the game. I really don't think it was the tail end of the game because I thought we competed extremely well and got ourselves back in there. We gave ourselves a chance to win the ball game. That is the thing I am most proud of with this group today."
Junior OF Trey Harris
On the loss…
"I think we just – outs ran out on us. I think we fought, played really well towards the end of the game. We had a chance to win the game and that's all you ask every day, whether you win or lose, you ask for a chance to win the game at the end. We got our chance to win, sometimes things don't fall our way. We've been lucky like 12 times this year, so I guess this is the one time we'll let it slip up."
Game Notes:
- Arkansas cut Mizzou's lead in the all-time series with Mizzou to 31-26-1
- Mizzou is now 5-1 on Sundays
- 2,229 fans took in Sunday's game, a season-high. It was Mizzou's best-attended game since April 16, 2016, against LSU when 2,559 fans came to Taylor Stadium.
