ST. JOSEPH – In what could be considered poetic justice, the Missouri Western baseball team finished the regular season with a pair of extra inning, walk-off wins to put an exclamation point on an often heartbreaking season.
Missouri Western has been on the wrong end of nine walk-offs this season but picked up two of its own Friday over Northwest Missouri State to finish the regular season 29-19 and 22-14 in the MIAA.
Friday’s doubleheader ran just into Saturday with a 40 minute delay during game two pushing the winning run across the plate at the stroke of midnight.
GAME 1: MWSU 6, Northwest Missouri State 5 (8 innings)
Fittingly, two seniors combined for a walk-off win in game one for the Griffons.
Cody Childs’ single to left field scored Trevor LaHonta in the bottom of the eighth with two outs. LaHonta led off the inning with a single to right field. Ryan Degner followed with a sacrifice bunt that advanced LaHonta to second. Orencio Fisher made the second out of the inning with a ground out to shortstop before Childs game winner through the left side.
Northwest took an early lead, scoring one in the first. MWSU jumped ahead in the third with three runs. Both teams scored one in the fifth then the Bearcats added three in the seventh to take a 5-4 lead. Cosimo Cannella tied it in the bottom of the seventh with a solo home run to left field.
Matt Russell, another Griffon senior, picked up the win, recording two outs. Weston Caindec lasted the first four innings, allowing two runs on four hits. Richard Peoples gave up three runs on three hits in two and a third innings of work. Fisher, Childs, Cannella and Michael Yeager all had two hits. Childs drove in two.
GAME 2: MWSU 4, Northwest Missouri State 3 (9 innings)
David Glaude roped a line drive down the right field line to drive in Fisher for the winning score in game two. The game was supposed to just go seven innings after the first game went to extra innings but a run by Northwest in the top of the seventh knotted the game up. That run came after a 40 minute rain delay with a runner on first and no outs in the top half of the seventh.
Fisher led off the ninth, beating out a ground ball to the shortstop. Cody Childs followed by reaching on an error then Cosimo Cannella popped up for the first out. Glaude then lined a 1-0 pitch down the right field line that brought Fisher home from second to take the series three games to one.
Josh Lansangan picked up the win in his final regular season game as a Griffon, pitching the final inning and two-thirds. The senior struck out four and allowed two hits. Glaude finished the game 3-5 with three RBIs. Degner, Fisher and Brandon Downs all had two hits in game two.
The Griffons entered the day in fifth place in the MIAA, one game behind Washburn and Nebraska-Kearney, who were tied for fourth. Those two are scheduled to play a doubleheader on Saturday that could allow the Griffons to move into fourth place which would allow them to host a best of three series to open the MIAA Tournament next weekend. Should MWSU remain outside the top-four, the team will travel for the opening weekend of the conference tournament.
— MWSU Sports Information —
