Mizzou Baseball comes back, sweeps UAPB with a walk-off win

Two Tigers pitchers returned tonight from injury, but one was almost immediately re-injured

Mizzou Baseball completed a dramatic comeback victory Wednesday night against UAPB, winning 8-7 on a walk-off double by Keegan Knutson in the bottom of the ninth.

The run gave the Tigers their only lead of the game. The team trailed 5-0 early on and slowly crawled back into the game, tying the score in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Kaden Peer tripled off the wall in deep center field, scoring Chris Patterson to knot the game 7-7.

Xavier Lovett entered the game in the eighth for Mizzou and loaded the bases, almost immediately giving the advantage back to Pine Bluff. But the Tigers induced three consecutive groundouts to preserve the score, and Lovett stranded two more runners in the top of the ninth.

Jackson Lovich got the offense moving in the bottom of the ninth, hitting a chopper to third which Golden Lions third baseman Brant Voth was unable to handle. He advanced to second base with a steal, but was looked at by a trainer and exited the game following his slide into second.

After a long delay and a substitution for Lovich, Knutson stepped up to the plate and knocked home the game-winner to complete the sweep of the two-game midweek series.

When the team saw that Lovich was unable to continue, Lovett asked head coach Kerrick Jackson who would enter at shortstop as a replacement.

“I said, ‘It doesn’t matter, we’re about to walk it off,’” Jackson said. “Have a belief system, believe in something, and good things came come as a result of just being in the right headspace. And so if we can turn that page and stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, I think we’ll be amazed at what can happen.”

The extra-base hit sent the remaining Tigers fans home happy shortly after the contest had reached its fifth hour.

A short-lived return

Mizzou’s comeback victory was especially impressive considering the multiple key players that suffered injuries during the matchup.

The Tigers entered today’s contest with a noticeable burst of energy as starter Daniel Wissler, expected to be a key member of the rotation before the season, returned from injury for his first appearance since Feb. 15.

Six pitches into the first inning, the tenor of the game changed dramatically.

Wissler yanked a pitch and was seen shaking his arm as coach Jackson, the training staff and the entire infield gathered around him on the mound. He was noticeably emotional as he exited the game after being hugged by his teammates, and was unable to continue in his return outing.

Seth McCartney entered the game and held the Golden Lions scoreless with the final out, but the visitors struck with five runs in the top of the second inning.

“You just felt the entire energy in the dugout, the team, just go away,” Jackson said, “and it just lulled there. And every time something would happen, if we didn’t get the big hit or we didn’t do this, then it just kind of went deeper and deeper.”

Three singles, two of them in the infield, loaded the bases with two outs before McCartney hit Gavin Terry with a pitch to bring in the game’s opening run. Dane Small followed with a double down the left field line, making it 3-0.

James Vaughn then entered for Mizzou, giving up a walk and a single to center field by Vinny Saumell which brought home two more runs and dug the Tigers into a deeper hole.

Working back from the deficit

Jackson’s squad began their climb out with two solo home runs in the bottom half of the inning from Pierre Seals and Brady Picarelli, cutting the deficit to 5-2.

Pine Bluff scored one run off of Vaughn in the top of the third, prompting another pitching change to Cayden Nicoletto. The Tigers put two more runs on the board in the inning’s bottom half to make it a 6-4 ballgame.

The fourth inning featured the return from injury of another key Tigers pitcher, Tony Neubeck. The junior made his first appearance in over two calendar years Wednesday night, allowing a run and loading the bases with two outs.

But he ended his night on a high note, striking out Voth to strand three runners and keep the game within three runs. The outing was his first since March 19, 2023 against Tennessee.

Jackson said after the game that he intended to pull Neubeck from the game before the Voth at-bat, but Neubeck changed his mind during the mound visit.

“He said, ‘Give me three pitches,’ I said, ‘Alright, you got three pitches.’ And he threw three pitches and got the guy out,” Jackson said. “As I told him, that’s one of the ballsiest things I’ve ever seen anybody do.”

Mizzou continued chipping away in the bottom of the fourth, scoring another pair of runs to make it 7-6.

Knutson grounded out to second base with one out and runners on the corners, bringing home Peer, and Seals singled to left field the next at-bat to plate Lovich.

Jackson’s squad completed its long climb back to even ground in the seventh with Peer’s triple, setting the stage for the game’s tense final innings and the Knutson walk-off.

Moving forward

Though the team showed resiliency during the extended comeback effort in tonight’s game, this contest was a gut punch to the Tigers.

The team entered this game with more momentum than they’d had in a long time, and Wissler looked like his old self in the first inning before his injury. But his exit sucked the air out of the dugout and Taylor Stadium, which affected Mizzou for most of the game.

The loss of Lovich, the team’s leader on offense, in the ninth will also be a situation to closely monitor. Jackson was unable to provide any updates on either player following the game, but if both are out for any extended period of time it would be a devastating blow to a team which has already taken so many this season.

The Tigers will have to hope for rare pieces of positive injury news over the next few days before resuming their SEC schedule.

Mizzou will face Arkansas, the nation’s second-ranked team, Friday through Saturday in Fayetteville. The series opener will be broadcast on SEC Network, and first pitch is at 7 p.m.