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ARLINGTON, Texas – Oklahoma State scored five times in the second inning, then held off a valiant Missouri comeback bid to claim a 5-3 opening-day victory over the Tigers Friday at the College Baseball Showdown at Globe Life Field.
Roc Riggio delivered the game’s biggest blow with a two-out, two-run single that turned a two-run OSU lead into a 4-0 advantage for the No. 11 Cowboys. Freshman DH Carson Benge followed with an RBI single on the next pitch to cap the five-run second.
Mizzou battled back with three unanswered runs over the next two innings, but four OSU relievers combined to hold the Tigers hitless over the final five frames to preserve the narrow margin. Drew Blake (1-0) earned the mound victory with 2.0 hitless innings to headline the group’s efforts.
Tony Neubeck and Zach Franklin were equally as impressive out of the Mizzou bullpen, combining for 12 strikeouts and holding the Cowboy offense hitless for four innings. Neubeck fanned a career-high nine hitters, including a string of five in a row spanning the third and fourth innings. Franklin worked the Tigers out of a seventh-inning jam with back-to-back punchouts, ultimately striking out three of the five hitters he faced.
In all, Neubeck, Franklin and starting pitcher Chandler Murphy (0-1) registered 16 strikeouts on the day and limited OSU to one hit over the final 5 2/3 innings of the game, as five of the Cowboys’ six hits on the day came during the decisive second-inning rally.
Nolan McLean, who worked around a Ty Wilmsmeyer single in the ninth to close out the victory, sparked OSU’s offense with a leadoff walk to start the second. David Mendham added a single, and back-to-back hits by Marcus Brown and Nolan Schubart produced the first run of the contest.
Murphy issued a bases-loaded walk to Ian Daugherty before briefly recovering to strike out Zach Ehrhard for the second out of the inning.
But Riggio lined an 0-2 pitch past a diving Justin Colon at short to chase home both Brown and Schubart for a four-run OSU cushion. Benge lined the next pitch to left to bring in Daugherty and make it a 5-0 contest.
The Tigers responded immediately, as Ross Lovich recorded the first RBI of the new season for Mizzou, lacing a single to right after Luke Mann sparked the third-inning rally with a two-out double. Dalton Bargo added his first hit as a Tiger to keep the momentum going, before Trevor Austin was hit by a pitch and Hank Zeisler coaxed a bases-loaded walk to force home the second MU run of the inning.
In the fourth, Wilmsmeyer singled with one out, moved to second on a Juaron Watts-Brown wild pitch, then sprinted home on Colon’s line-drive single to center to trim the deficit to 5-3.
From there, the OSU bullpen seized control, as Blake worked around a pair of walks in the fifth, joining forces with Brant Hogue and Evan O’ Toole to set down 10 straight Mizzou hitters from the fifth through the eighth innings.
Wilmsmeyer stopped that string with his leadoff hit in the ninth, but McLean retired the next three Tiger hitters to secure the save.
Lovich and Wilmsmeyer led the Mizzou offense with two-hit days at the plate, while Austin reached safely in each of his first three plate appearances.
UP NEXT
Mizzou continues play in the College Baseball Showdown Saturday with a 3 p.m. matchup against Texas, before concluding the weekend Sunday with a 6:30 p.m. tilt with TCU.
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