Mizzou’s baseball season ends with blowout loss to Mississippi St. in SEC tourney

The Missouri Tigers’ baseball season ended with a 12-2 loss to Mississippi State in the second round of the SEC Tournament on Wednesday in Hoover, Alabama.

The game was halted after seven innings — Mississippi State triggered the run rule.

Things started well enough for Mizzou. Kam Durnin got the Tigers on the scoreboard first with a homer to dead-center in the second at-bat of the game.

Durnin, a draft-eligible junior shortstop from Camdenton, certainly did his best to help the Tigers stave off elimination: He was 5-for-6 with home runs across MU’s two tournament games.

The Tigers, the last-place team in the SEC, had stunned No. 9-seed Ole Miss in their first game (Tuesday) to set up Wednesday’s second-round matchup. But their dream of a Cinderella run ended in a game characterized by Mizzou fielding miscues — and a back-breaking eight-run sixth by the Bulldogs.

Mississippi State, the No. 8 seed, will play Georgia in the quarterfinals at 3 p.m. Thursday. The Tigers, meanwhile, will reflect on a season of improvement but one in which they still didn’t compete with the SEC’s top programs.

“I think we underachieved, unfortunately,” Mizzou coach Kerrick Jackson said on TigerTalk Radio after the game. “We saw that in our inconsistency of play. When we play the game the right way, we put ourselves in a position to win a lot of ball games. And, unfortunately, we couldn’t do that on a regular basis. And so consistency is the key.”

Lefty Brady Kehlenbrink started for Mizzou, setting the Bulldogs down 1-2-3 in a 10-pitch first inning.

A leadoff single by Jacob Parker led to trouble for Mizzou in the bottom of the second. Parker attempted a steal with two outs, and was originally called out on the throw by Mateo Serna to end the inning. Parker used an Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge and got the call overturned.

The NCAA introduced the ABS system in the SEC Tournament on an experimental basis.

Chris Patterson’s first error of the season extended the inning again, and allowed for a three-run home run by Ryder Woodson. Kehlenbrink caught Chone James looking to end the inning, but the Bulldogs headed into the third with a 3-1 lead.

The Tigers manufactured a run following a leadoff single by Kaden Peer and an errant pickoff throw from Bulldog starter Tomas Valincius. A good piece of situational hitting by Jamal George advanced Peer, and Patterson drove him in with a sacrifice fly into foul ground in right field.

Back-to-back walks set up Gehrig Frei for an RBI single in the fifth. Kehlenbrink issued another walk and was pulled from the game, leaving the bases loaded with one out. His final line was 4⅓ innings, four runs, just one earned run and eight strikeouts.

Sam Rosand came in to face Nosh Sullivan and dealt Sullivan’s third strikeout of the game. Rosand fielded a grounder and looped it over base runner Parker’s head to Woita at first to end the inning. The Tigers avoided disaster, at least temporarily, by stranding three and allowing just one run in the inning.

Vytas Valincius helped get his brother some run support by leading off the sixth with a solo shot to left. Two more singles and Patterson’s second error (on a tough hop off the lip of the infield) would load the bases and force Rosand out of the game.

Isaiah Salas, the reliable freshman, came in and plunked Frei to plate a run. Ace Reese walked on the 11th pitch of the at bat to score another run, and Pierre Seals lost track of a fly ball in right, leading to a fluke RBI single for Sullivan.

After an RBI groundout, Vtyas Valincius blasted his second home run of the inning, and fifth of the year, to put the Bulldogs up by the final score.

Mississippi State would complete the run-rule victory in the seventh after an ABS review overturned the safe call at first on a Jamal George double play. Despite the hustle, the Tigers were unable to build on the leadoff walk.

Tomas Valincius was credited with the win after throwing six innings of five-hit baseball. He allowed two runs, one earned, and struck out eight. The Tigers had five hits and one walk.

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