Brayden Drake scored on a walk-off balk with two outs in the bottom of the 10th to give the Missouri State baseball team an 11-10 victory over Texas-San Antonio Saturday in the Southwest Diamond Classic at Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, Texas.
The Bears improved to 2-1 on the season after overcoming a 7-2 second-inning deficit, while UTSA fell to 1-7 in a game played in a dust storm where wind gusts exceeded 50 miles per hour during the early innings.
Drake and Ben Carlson singled and Christian reached on an error to load the bases with two outs before J.T. Mackey (0-1) balked home the winning run.
The Bears took an early 2-0 lead when Ben Woodbury led off the game with a walk and Matt Lawson bounced a single through the right side to put runners on the corners. Kyle Paul then hit an RBI ground out to score Woodbury. Lawson followed by stealing third and scored when the catcher’s throw sailed wide of the third baseman.
UTSA opened the top of the second with five consecutive hits and would eventually take advantage of seven hits, a walk, a hit by pitch and an error to score seven runs in the frame.
The scoring continued in the bottom of the second, beginning with a leadoff double from Overstreet. Carlson reached when the left fielder dropped a fly ball, and Shane Elenz followed with a towering fly ball to right center that cleared the wall for his first homer of the season. Tanner Mattson singled to right and Woodbury reached when pitcher Bradley Chovanec threw the ball into center trying to start the double play, allowing Mattson to move to third. The MSU shortstop then scored on Lawson’s RBI fielder’s choice to pull the Bears to 7-6 through two innings.
The Roadrunners put another three runs on the board in the fourth, knocking starter Tim Clubb out of the game in the process after 3.1 innings. Clubb allowed 10 runs and 13 hits in his first collegiate appearance before giving way to Buddy Baumann.
Baumann settled things down for the Bears, throwing 4.2 innings of hitless relief, allowing only two walks and a hit batsman. Matt Frevert relieved Baumann after the freshman walked the leadoff man in the ninth.
Frevert pitched the final two innings to improve to 2-0 on the season as he and Baumann combined for 6.2 innings of hitless relief after the early UTSA surge.
MSU cut the deficit to 10-7 in the fourth with an RBI single from Paul to score Woodbury after an earlier walk.
The Bears loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth to put UTSA starter Chovanec out of the game. Lawson, Paul and Clay Coulter hit three straight singles, and Drake brought Lawson home with a sacrifice fly to center. Texas-San Antonio walked Carlson to load the bases again and Chris Taylor blooped a pinch hit two-RBI single over the shortstop to tie the game 10-apiece through six.
MSU loaded the bases with a two-out rally in the ninth but came up empty after Mackey got the strikeout to take it into extra innings.
Every Bears starter had at least one hit in the game.
Missouri State closes out the weekend with a 12 p.m. game Sunday against Gonzaga in Arlington, Texas.
