SPRINGFIELD – The fall baseball exhibition series 'Battle for Bell' is scheduled for Sat., Oct. 1 at Hammons Field and this year's event, sponsored by SRC Holdings Corporation, will feature two games and all four Springfield collegiate programs.

Once again, Drury will face Missouri State with the game scheduled at 6:30 pm. Earlier that afternoon, Evangel will take on Baptist Bible College at 1 pm. Tickets are $5, and admission is good for both games.

The four teams and the Battle for Bell go to help fight Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), with a portion of ticket revenue directed to the local ALS Clinic, which provides coordinated care and support to ALS patients in the region.

In continuing their efforts to raise awareness for ALS, the city's four collegiate programs will honor the late Howard Bell and the ongoing quest to find a cure for ALS – commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Bell, who passed away from ALS in 2013, shared close connections with the MSU and DU baseball programs. A three-year letterman for the Bears under current head coach Keith Guttin, Bell capped his collegiate career with a standout 1986 campaign in which he was honored as Mid-Continent Conference Player of the Year after hitting .396 and helping MSU to a then-school-record 47 victories and its third straight AMCU Tournament title.

The Springfield native also spent more than a decade working on the baseball staff at Glendale High School and was an assistant under Mark Stratton, who would later become the Panthers first head baseball coach in 2005. Bell was on the staff when Drury's current head coach Scott Nasby played for the Falcons, and Bell eventually took over the Glendale program as head coach when Stratton arrived at Drury.

This year's Panthers-Bears match-up will be the sixth time the two programs have staged the 'Battle for Bell' game. Last year's exhibition was decided in the bottom of the ninth as the Bears edged Drury for a 5-4 at Hammons Field in front of a crowd of more than 1,500. Missouri State has won each of the five exhibition meetings in the series and one regular season meeting, a 9-8 victory over Drury in the spring on April 6, 2021.
 
The BBC-Evangel game will be the first time those two programs have played one another in the exhibition series.

Gates will open at noon, and tickets are only available for purchase on gameday at Hammons Field. Cost is $5 for adults, and children 13 and under are admitted free. All seating is general admission.