BOX SCORE

RUSSELLVILLE, Ar. — Talk about hitting the ground running against a nationally-ranked gauntlet.

One day after a season-opening loss to #11 Southern Arkansas, the Missouri Western baseball team fell at #19 Arkansas Tech on Monday.

The Wonder Boys scored one run each inning until putting up a four-spot in the fourth to go up 7-0 and eventually win 11-4. After being no-hit on Sunday, Missouri Western's first base knock of the season came way off a Riley Higgins' slap single up the middle. However, MWSU didn't score until the sixth inning.

Griffon junior Brady Holden took a triple to right field to score senior Alex Crouch. Junior Hunter Rumachik then popped out to first, but Holden used his speed some more by scoring off a tag-up from third to make it 7-2. Missouri Western couldn't make much contact with Wonder Boys pitchers, though, striking out 16 times. Noah Wenger did find the meat of that bat in the ninth inning, sending a solo home run out of the park. 

The Griffons used five pitchers Monday junior starter Jeremy Schneider went three innings with five earned runs and five walks. Junior pitcher Matt Kesel showed out in the bottom of the sixth where he struck out the side and gave up zero runs. Fellow junior David Steffen followed suit in the seventh with two strikeouts of his own. 

This was supposed to be a doubleheader, but the second game was canceled due to poor field conditions.

On to Arkadelphia 

Missouri Westerns remains in Arkansas and meets Ouachita Baptist (0-2) on Thursday at 2 p.m. in Arkadelphia. The Tigers took down the Griffons 4-3 last MWSU came to town on Feb. 8, 2019.