The Missouri Western baseball team defeated Fort Hays State Saturday afternoon in the first game of the first round of the MIAA Tournament 9-1 at the Griffon Spring Sports Complex. Western takes a 1-0 series lead in the best-of-three first round series. Missouri Western is now 36-8 and the Tigers sit at 23-21.

Brandon Simmons pitched seven scoreless innings as he is now 10-0 on the season. Simmons was in trouble twice with two bases-loaded jams in the bottoms of innings No. 3 and 4, but the senior got out of the mess after he stuck out Tigers’ top hitter Clayton Garland looking and forced a ground out in the third inning.

The next time, Simmons recorded two straight strike outs.

Michael Schulze scored a run in the first inning after he singled to left field. Grant Fink scored Schulze shortly later to make it 1-0. The Griffons continued to add runs in the fourth and seventh innings to mark the score 6-0 before Hays got on the board in the top of the eighth.

Bubba Dotson cracked a two-run homer over the center-field fence to give the Griffons a 9-1 run lead in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Game two of the series is Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. and you can listen to the game on ESPN 1550 AM.

— MWSU Sports Information —