COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri baseball completed a perfect opening weekend of Southeastern Conference play by claiming both ends of its Sunday afternoon doubleheader with Tennessee, finishing off a three-game series sweep of the nationally-ranked Volunteers with wins of 7-4 and 7-1 at Taylor Stadium.
A crowd of 2,764—the Tigers’ largest announced home attendance since May 2019—witnessed Mizzou score three first-inning runs en route to building a 7-1 lead in game one, before Zach Franklin (4-0) finished off the victory with 5.0 strong innings of relief.
Game two saw more dominant Tiger pitching, as Austin Troesser (2-1) retired the first 13 batters he faced in his initial start of the 2023 season. The righty fanned seven over 4 2/3 innings without allowing a UT hit. The lone blemish on his outing was a one-out walk in the fifth that came around to score after Troesser had departed the contest.
Tony Neubeck and Rorik Maltrud closed out the victory and the sweep by combining for 2 1/3 innings of one-hit relief, capping a weekend in which MU pitching limited one of the nation’s top offenses to .132 hitting while registering 32 strikeouts in 23.0 innings.
The SEC series sweep is just the seventh three-game sweep for the Tigers since joining the conference in 2013 and their first against a ranked league foe.
Trevor Austin, who went 2-for-3 with three runs scored and an RBI in Friday’s 9-1 series opening victory, led the Mizzou offense again Sunday, going a combined 3-for-6 with three RBIs. The junior utility man recorded run-scoring singles in consecutive at-bats in the opener, then drove home the first run of the nightcap with a timely base hit in the third inning.
The Tigers (16-3, 3-0 SEC) kept the heat on the Volunteer pitching staff throughout the day, scoring in eight of the 12 innings in which they came to bat.
Missouri struck early in game one, scoring three times before Tennessee starter Chase Burns could record a single out. Luke Mann’s pop up to shallow left fell in for a leadoff double, before Ross Lovich drove him in with a base hit. Next, Dalton Bargo launched a no-doubter to right-center for a two-run homer and a 3-0 Mizzou lead.
Thanks to another Lovich hit and Austin’s first run-scoring single, the Tigers forged another rally in the third. After Austin’s flare to center plated Mann, a balk on Burns brought in the fifth Mizzou run of the game.
Dylan Leach’s leadoff home run in the fourth extended the lead to 6-0, and a pair of Volunteer errors gave Mizzou an insurance run in the fifth.
Franklin struck out six and allowed just one earned run on four hits. He picked up his 20th career victory in relief of Ian Lohse, who worked himself into and out of trouble in each of the first two innings. The lefty walked three and hit another batter but recorded critical strikeouts in each frame to keep UT off the board.
The Vols finally broke through against Franklin over the final two innings, using a Griffin Merritt solo shot to pull to within 7-2 in the sixth. A dropped fly ball kept UT’s seventh alive, and Zane Denton followed with a two-urn homer to make it a three-run game.
After finishing off the game one win, Mizzou scored four times in the third to take control of the finale. The Tigers added single runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to seal the outcome. Cam Chick (2-for-2) delivered a key two-run double with two out in the third, then added another two-out RBI in the fifth to cap his afternoon.
Justin Colon finished the series with a bang as well, reaching base in all three trips to the plate in game two, going 1-for-1 with two runs scored, a fourth-inning RBI single and a stolen base.
Austin paced the Mizzou lineup by hitting .556 (5-for-9) with four runs scored and four RBIs during the series, helping the Tigers outscore the Vols by a 23-6 margin.
TIGER NOTEBOOK
• Mizzou improved to 11-1 at home this season and 393-226 all-time at Taylor Stadium
• The sweep gave Missouri its first in an SEC opening series since 2015 when its swept Georgia on the road (March 14-15)
• The Tigers notched their first sweep of Tennessee since 2017
• Missouri held Tennessee to one run in two of the three games in the series, matching the Vols’ season low offensive run total
• Sunday’s announced attendance of 2,764 is the largest at Taylor Stadium since a gathering of 3,182 vs. Florida on May 17, 2019
• The SEC series loss marks just the second for Tennessee since the start of the 2022 season and its first in conference play since May 5-7, 2022 vs. Kentucky
• Leach’s game one homer marked his first as a Tiger
• Bargo recorded his sixth multi-hit effort of 2023 with two hits in three at-bats in game one
• Austin logged his eighth multi-hit game, which leads the Tigers in 2023
• Franklin finished with six strikeouts — his fourth appearance with six-plus K’s this season
• Franklin’s 5.0 innings marked his longest outing as a Tiger
• Chick registered a Mizzou career high with his three RBIs in game two
• The series marks the first time Tennessee has been swept since 2019 against Arkansas
• Missouri registered its first SEC series sweep since April 26-28, 2019, when the Tigers swept South Carolina
• Mizzou’s series win is its first on the opening weekend of SEC play since 2017
UP NEXT
Mizzou will embark on a nine-game road trip, beginning with a 6 p.m. contest Wednesday (March 22) against Kansas at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.
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