Prime 9
- The Missouri State Bears will embark on their second West Coast excursion of the 2019 season this weekend when they meet the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos for a three-game non-conference series, beginning Friday (March 22) with a 5 p.m. (CDT) contest at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium in Santa Barbara, Calif.
- Missouri State head coach Keith Guttin ranks fifth among all active NCAA Division I coaches in total wins (1,264) and needs seven more victories to match the career total of former Miami (Fla.) coach Ron Fraser for the No. 19 position on the NCAA's Division I coaching wins list
- The Bears recorded one of the largest comeback victories in program history at Oklahoma last Friday, erasing an 8-0 deficit by scoring the final 11 runs of the contest; the eight-run margin represents the biggest deficit MSU has overcome since at least the 1997 season
- MSU is searching for its first victory of the season against a foe from the state of California; the Bears are 0-5 in 2019 and 8-9 all-time against opponents from the Golden State
- MSU has gone 94-56 in road and neutral site contests since 2015, including a 69-44 mark in true road games
- The Bears' roster features three different returners who have earned All-America recognition during their respective MSU careers, led by 2019 preseason Collegiate Baseball All-America picks Drew Millas and Connor Sechler
- MSU has 81 combined come-from-behind wins over the last four-plus seasons; the Bears have also won 157 straight contests in which they have taken a lead into the ninth inning dating back to May 2014
- After hitting just one home run in his first 91 games as a Bear, Logan Geha has homered four times in MSU's last six outings, including his first collegiate grand slam that helped key the Bears' comeback last Friday at OU
- Geha brings a career-best four-game his streak into Friday's game; the junior has hit .250 (4-for-16) during the streak, but three of those hits have left the yard and he has nine RBIs as well
Leading Off
The
Missouri State Bears will embark on their second West Coast excursion of the 2019 season this weekend when they meet the
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos for a three-game non-conference series at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium in Santa Barbara, Calif. The Bears and Gauchos will open the set Friday (March 22) with a 5 p.m. (CDT) contest, before playing single games Saturday (4 p.m.) and Sunday (1:30 p.m.).
The Bears (5-13) are coming off a 2-3 week that saw them post wins over a pair of perennial postseason qualifiers in Oral Roberts and Oklahoma. MSU notched an 11-2 win at ORU, then rallied from an eight-run deficit to claim an 11-8 decision in its opening game at OU. The Gauchos (14-3), who own the Big West Conference's best record, won 12 straight games until California Baptist ended that streak Sunday.
Missouri State will head home for midweek contests against Arkansas (March 26) and Kansas (March 27), before opening Missouri Valley Conference play next Friday with a three-game home series against Indiana State.
Series History
This weekend's series will mark the first time Missouri State and UC Santa Barbara will meet on the baseball diamond. It does mark the Bears' third different Big West Conference foe in 2019, as MSU dropped a Feb. 22 tilt with Cal State Fullerton at the Tony Gwynn Legacy, as well as a March 1 doubleheader against UC Irvine in Springfield. MSU brings a cumulative 5-5 all-time record against Big West opponents into Friday's action, including a three-game sweep of CSUN at Hammons Field last March.
Powering Up
After hitting just three home runs as a team through their first 10 games of the season, the Bears have experienced a power surge of sorts over their last eight contests. MSU doubled its season total with three long balls in its series at Arkansas State (March 8-10), getting solo shots from
Logan Geha and
Collin Clayton and a two-run bomb from
Dakota Kotowski. The home runs by Clayton and Kotowski marked their first as Bears. Of MSU's 10 homers so far, four of them (including
Anthony Herron, Jr., and
Javier Ramos) have come from newcomers hitting their first round-trippers in Maroon and White.
Geha, in particular, has enjoyed a recent power binge, clubbing three long balls in MSU's five games in Oklahoma last week. The junior catcher/outfielder has hit all four of his home runs in the last six games, including his first grand slam as a Bear that helped key MSU's comeback victory at Oklahoma last Friday.
Comeback Cubs
The Bears' 11-8 comeback win over Oklahoma last Friday represented one of the largest in program history. MSU erased an 8-0, seventh-inning deficit by scoring seven times in the seventh, three more in the eighth and one in the ninth. MSU has made the comeback rally an art form in accumulating the most overall victories over a four-year period (170) in program history from 2015-18. Since the start of the 2015 season, the Bears have rallied for a victory on 81 separate occasions, including 21 times last spring, which represented 52.5 percent of their overall season win total (40).
Streak Stopper
Missouri State used its most complete performance of the season to stop its six-game slide with an 11-2 victory over Oral Roberts March 13 in Tulsa. MSU scored 10 times in the first two innings, turned a season-high three double plays in an error-free defensive effort and closed out the win with 5 2/3 innings of scoreless work from its bullpen. Senior
Jake Lochner logged 3.2 innings of one-hit relief, while
Sam Faith recorded a career day with two hits and three RBIs to lead the offense.
The Bears touched up ORU for a pair of first-inning runs, then broke the game wide open with their biggest scoring rally in two years. Faith delivered run-producing hits in each of the first two innings, putting the Bears on the board with a two-run single in the first before doubling home another baserunner as part of the eight-run second.
Non-Con Domination
MSU has been nearly unstoppable against non-conference competition over the last four seasons, compiling an 90-51 (.638) record in regular-season games versus non-league foes since the start of the 2015 season. The Bears, who have won 40 of their last 57 regular-season non-conference home games, outscoring their non-league opponents by a 813-511 margin at Hammons Field over the same stretch.
In Rare Company
With Missouri State's 4-2 win over Indiana State at the 2018 MVC Championship, Bears head coach
Keith Guttin moved past Jack Stallings for sole possession of the No. 20 spot on the NCAA's Division I career coaching wins list. With a career record of 1,264-789 (.616), Guttin needs seven more wins to catch legendary Miami coach Ron Fraser (1,271) in the 19th position on the chart. Guttin is the second-winningest coach in MVC history, while his win total ranked fifth among all active Division I head coaches entering the 2019 season, his 37th at the Bears' helm.
Road to Success
MSU has proven to be hard to stop on the road over the past four seasons, logging a 69-44 (.611) record in such contests. Including their 25-12 record in neutral-field games over the same stretch, the Bears have gone 94-56 (.627) away from Hammons Field since the start of the 2015 season.
The Bears went 14-8 in true road games a year ago, after logging 19 road wins in 2017 and a program-record 21 wins in 27 road contests in 2015. MSU's 0.857 win percentage on the road that year represented its best since 1978, when it posted an identical percentage with a 12-2 road mark.
Coupled with their 9-3 record in neutral field contests in 2015, the Bears' total of 30 wins away from home was second only to national champion Virginia in the Division I ranks and qualified as the best in school history. The Bears also posted the longest road win streak in Division I baseball in 2015, claiming 11-straight victories from March 15 to April 25.
Bears on Radio
Once again in 2019, Meyer Communications is slated to provide live radio coverage of all 54 Missouri State regular-season games, plus all Bears' games in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and any 2019 postseason play. The broadcasts can be heard primarily on KBFL 1060 AM and 96.9 FM in Springfield with
Art Hains, Ben Goss and Corey Riggs describing the action. An online audio stream is available through KBFL's website via RadioSpringfield.com.
