NORMAL, Ill. \u2014 From the time it entered the Missouri Valley Conference, Murray State\u2019s baseball program had proven it belonged in a league long regarded as one of the tops in all of college baseball.<\/p>\n
At 9:05 tonight, everyone knew it. The scoreboard said it all \u2026 \u201cMurray State 10, Missouri State 5\u201d \u2026 after the Racers recorded the final out of this year\u2019s Valley Championship at Duffy Bass Field on the Illinois State campus in Normal. The Racers won their first Valley tournament title in a manner appropriate for this league, going a perfect 4-0 this week to earn only the fourth-ever visit to the NCAA Tournament. Tonight\u2019s win puts Murray State at 39-13, one win shy of the school single-season mark of 40 set in 1975.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan! I just think of a lot of different people. I see a lot of different faces that have helped \u2026 the players that have been bought into this process here and how we do things and to see them get rewarded for that this year means a lot,\u201d said Murray State Head Coach Dan Skirka in a postgame interview with Murray State Athletics. \u201c \u00a0 \u00a0 .<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of (players in his seven years as head coach in Murray, resulting in 204 wins) and some of them are here. Plus, I\u2019m getting a lot of texts and lots of social media posts. There\u2019s a lot of people following these guys and they are all part of this championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
As was the case this entire week, the Racers had numerous heroes tonight against a Mo State team (30-25) that had the lead for almost the entire conference regular season, until the Racers caught them on the last weekend to forge a tie for the regular season title.<\/p>\n
The offensive side was led by center fielder Dustin Mercer, who had four of the Racers\u2019 12 hits, including an RBI triple in the first inning and a huge bases-loaded double in the second, and accounted for five RBIs. Those first two at-bats left the Racers in possession of an early 4-0 lead that they did not relinquish.<\/p>\n
Catcher Will Vierling was also huge, going 3-for-5 with a solo home run in the third that gave the Racers a 5-1 lead. He ended with two RBIs and two runs scored. Shortstop Conner Cunningham also was big from the bottom of the batting order, going 2-for-4 with a solo homer that countered a Mo State run in the top of the fourth and regained a four-run cushion at 6-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bears also possess a powerful offense and made this close in the sixth when catcher Carter Bergman sent a two-run homer over the left-center-field wall to cut the lead to 6-4. However, this was not only countered in the bottom half but was surpassed as the Racers scored four times to up the lead to their largest bulge of the night at 10-4.<\/p>\n
Mercer\u2019s RBI single scored another of tonight\u2019s heroes \u2014 right fielder Jonathan Hogart (2-for-4 with three runs scored), who had led off the inning with a double. Luke Mistone\u2019s bases-loaded walk was then followed by a wild pitch and a Vierling RBI single to significantly lower the pressure on the Murray State pitching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game we went into (in Normal), we never tight,\u201d said Mercer, whose team trailed in their first three games but had strong late innings to overcome those deficits. Friday night\u2019s 5-2 win over Illinois-Chicago was an example as the Racers were locked in a tense, close battle until the final two innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s positive energy. We\u2019re not going to lose, knowing we\u2019re tougher and that we put in the work and we really trusted ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there is probably not enough good things to say about the Racer hurlers this week. Whether it was the starters or the relievers, it seemed someone was always making a key pitch to kill an opposing rally and building momentum for a Racer offensive uprising.<\/p>\n
Starting pitcher Isaac Silva \u2014 who only lasted four innings in Wednesday\u2019s 15-14 extra-innings win over Belmont \u2014 had such a moment in the fifth. With the score 6-2, Silva \u2014 an All-Valley First Team selection this season \u2014 emerged from a bases-loaded jam unscathed by guiding Mo State\u2019s Dylan Robertson into an inning-ending groundout.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Silva finished the night, having gone five innings, allowing two runs and four hits with five strikeouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From there, Skirka gave the ball to his bullpen, which was outstanding all week. It did not change tonight with a true freshman closing the door.<\/p>\n
A year ago, Reese Oakley was one of the best players for a solid Marshall County team at the high school level. Tonight, he had his best outing of his short Racer career, going three innings, allowing no runs, one hit and one walk, while striking out two Bears hitters.<\/p>\n
It was Oakley who had the honor of retiring the Bears in order in the ninth, sparking a massive celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many guys contributed,\u201d Skirka said after watching his starter reach at least the fifth inning the final three games, keeping the bullpen very fresh. \u201cYou had (righty) Kane Elby doing a great job (Friday, with six innings in the starting role), Jacob Hustedde (a righty reliever) who was outstanding twice for us and, now, Reese, the freshman, finished the job here today. It\u2019s awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Racers won this title in all three phases and that included some highlight-reel defense, headlined by left fielder Dan Tauken\u2019s leaping catch to rob Southern Illinois of a go-ahead home run Thursday night. Defense and pitching were a huge reason for Friday\u2019s win, one where the Racers were actually outhit, 5-3, but did not commit an error, which was the case in their final three games and ended the tourney with only one.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played some phenomenal defense, we pitched the ball phenomenally well and hit the ball when we needed to. I mean, that\u2019s a good recipe for success right there,\u201d said Hogart, who had a nice running catch tonight on a short fly ball.<\/p>\n
The Racers will now await their assignment in the upcoming NCAA Tournament and will learn their opponent during the NCAA Selection Show at 11 a.m. on ESPN2.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORMAL, Ill. \u2014 From the time it entered the Missouri Valley Conference, Murray State\u2019s baseball program had proven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2289],"tags":[2315,2309,5,2316,2314,2317,2313,2423,648,2330,2333,2335,19,2310,2304,2318,2308,2319,7110,1694,2341,2322,2307,2320,4101,2321,185,811,2350,2311,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-52777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-college-baseball","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-competitions","12":"tag-baseball-finals","13":"tag-baseball-games","14":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","15":"tag-baseball-rules","16":"tag-college-baseball","17":"tag-glossary-of-baseball-terms","18":"tag-grass-field-surfaces","19":"tag-home-run","20":"tag-major-league-baseball","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","24":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","25":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","26":"tag-murray-state-racers","27":"tag-ncaa","28":"tag-ncaa-baseball","29":"tag-october-sporting-events","30":"tag-outdoor-sports","31":"tag-pitcher","32":"tag-relief-pitcher","33":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-starting-pitcher","36":"tag-strikeout","37":"tag-team-sports","38":"tag-turf-sports","39":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}