ATHENS, Ga. – The Mizzou Baseball team got a strong pitching performance from ace RHP Tanner Houck (Collinsville, Ill.), but the Tiger offense couldn't cover him, and MU dropped a 3-0 game at Georgia Thursday night in the opening game of a three-game series. The loss dropped Mizzou to 21-9 overall on the season, including 4-6 in Southeastern Conference play, while the Bulldogs improved to 14-17 and 4-6. Mizzou has now lost seven straight ballgames, all coming by three runs or less, with five of them being single-run defeats.
Houck (3-4) allowed just six hits in eight innings of work, with only two coming after the third inning. But the Bulldogs tallied single runs in the bottom of the first and third innings to claim a 2-0 lead while the Mizzou offense was handcuffed all night by UGA pitching. The Tigers could manage only three singles and struck out 17 times overall. Junior RF Trey Harris, playing in his home state of Georgia (native of Powder Springs, Ga.) collected two of Mizzou's hits, with a pair of sharp singles up the middle to raise his season batting average to .284. Junior 1B Matt Berler (Hoover, Ala.) notched the Tigers' other hit – a fifth-inning single before he was stranded at second base – but the rest of the Tiger lineup went a combined 0-for-24.
Harris' sixth-inning single came during Mizzou's best chance to score on the night, as it advanced freshman LF Kameron Misner (Poplar Bluff, Mo.) to second base with two outs after Misner drew a one-out walk. But UGA LHP Andrew Gist (2-2) was able to end the threat with a strikeout – his 10th of the evening. Gist worked 6.0 innings and allowed three hits while walking just one in the winning effort.
The Tigers mounted a late rally, putting a pair of runners on in the top of the ninth, courtesy of a dropped third strike and a walk, but UGA relief pitcher Blake Cairnes induced the final out of the evening on a strikeout to end the game.
The Bulldogs struck first after a 1-2-3 top of the first inning by the Mizzou offense, taking a 1-0 lead on a two-out single up the middle by DH Michael Curry. Georgia extended the lead to 2-0 in the bottom of the third on a solo home run by leadoff hitter Tucker Maxwell – only the third round tripper allowed by Mizzou's Houck on the year (44.1 innings to that point). Georgia would add a third run in the bottom of the eighth on a wild pitch that plated a runner from third with two outs.
Thursday's defeat capped a unique set of travel challenges that delayed the Tigers nearly 32 hours, and prevented Mizzou from arriving in Athens until less than 90 minutes prior to first pitch – which was already delayed by two hours due to MU's travel struggles. Mizzou was scheduled to fly out of St. Louis Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. central, but severe storms in the Atlanta area delayed and ultimately canceled all flights to the region, and forced the team to stay overnight in St. Louis. A charter flight was arranged to take the team to Athens Thursday in time for the scheduled 7:30 p.m. (eastern time) game, but a mechanical issue with the charter flight after it landed in St. Louis pushed the departure back another two hours, and the team couldn't touch down in Athens until 7:30 p.m. (eastern). Start time was moved to 9 p.m. to allow the Tigers to get to the stadium and warm up.
Mizzou will be back in action Friday evening for the second of three games with the Bulldogs. Friday's game is scheduled for a 6 p.m. (central time) first pitch, and will be streamed live on SEC Network+, with the radio call on KTGR Radio (1580 AM in Columbia) and streamed online at www.ktgr.com. For all the latest on all things Mizzou Baseball, stay tuned to MUTigers.com and follow the team @MizzouBaseball and like the team on Facebook and Instagram (Missouri Baseball).
Head Coach Steve Bieser Quotes
Opening statement…
"Those offensive woes are still coming back and hanging around and we're having a difficult time competing at the plate. Give their pitchers credit, they looked pretty sharp tonight and threw a really good game. We went down with a strikeout way too often."
On Tanner Houck's outing…
"He pitched well enough to win a ballgame, but whenever your team's not scoring for you it's really tough to win a ballgame. I think he made a couple of mistakes, and we'll talk about those, but those were the difference."
