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COLUMBIA, Mo. – Despite belting a season-high six home runs and scoring in eight of the nine innings of its Southeastern Conference series finale with Ole Miss, Missouri couldn’t slow the Rebel offense and fell, 20-14, in a Saturday afternoon slugfest at Taylor Stadium.
Ole Miss catcher Calvin Harris homered four times to set a Rebels single-game record and drove in 10 runs to match another in a contest that featured 34 runs and 12 home runs between the two offenses and saw Mizzou eclipse its single-season record for total home attendance.
With four home dates still remaining on its schedule, Mizzou ran its 2023 home attendance total to 32,457, surpassing the previous single-season Taylor Stadium record of 31,450, set in 2008.
The gathering of 2,077—Mizzou’s fifth crowd of 2,000 spectators or more this season—was witness to an heavy dose of offense for the third straight game in the series. After using a resurgent offense to score 24 combined runs in claiming the first two games—and the series win—from Ole Miss, the Tigers appeared poised to pull away early once again in the finale, scoring the first three runs of the afternoon. Back-to-back hits by Ross Lovich and Trevor Austin started the afternoon for the Missouri offense, before a Rebel error and a Dalton Bargo fielder’s choice grounder put the home club in front, 2-0.
Matt Garcia lifted the first of MU’s six long balls on the day over the wall in left-center field for a 3-0 lead in the second.
But the Rebels offense came to life in the third against Tiger starter Logan Lunceford (3-5), riding a pair of doubles and Harris’s first homer—a two-out, two-run shot—to even the score at 3-3.
Mizzou (27-20, 7-17 SEC) responded with a Tre Morris homer in the home half of the inning to reclaim the lead, but Ole Miss came back with its biggest rally of the day to seize control of the contest. Four walks and a hit batsman helped the visitors score six times on just one hit—a two-out Harris grand slam that ran the Ole Miss advantage to 9-4.
The Tigers rallied once again in the bottom of the inning, using a Luke Mann grand slam to counter Harris’s blast, making it a one-run game. For Mann, that marked his 45th homer as a Tiger, moving the fifth-year senior into a tie with Mike Rogers for the No. 2 position on Mizzou’s career home runs list.
But Ole Miss (25-23, 6-18 SEC) kept the pressure on a depleted Mizzou pitching staff, scoring two times in the fifth, thanks to the first of Peyton Chatagnier’s two home runs, then added four more in the sixth after Ty Wilmsmeyer launched his first round-tripper of the day in the bottom of the fifth. Harris once again played a key role, drilling his third long ball of the game to make it a 13-9 Rebel lead.
A two-run single from Jacob Gonzalez stretched the margin to six runs, but the Tigers responded with three unanswered tallies over the next two innings, including Wilmsmeyer’s second round-tripper, to once again claw to within three. Lovich doubled home a run to open a seventh-inning rally, before Hank Zeisler’s sac fly brought him home from third to make it a 15-12 game.
But Rebel reliever Mason Nichols held Mizzou scoreless for the first time in the game in the eighth, following another Ole Miss run in the top half of the inning. Harris put an exclamation point on the victory with his fourth home run of the day—a two-run shot that cleared the batter’s eye in center field—to ignite a four-run ninth. Chatagnier added his second homer as well, pushing the lead to eight runs.
Mizzou wouldn’t go away quietly, as Zeisler’s opposite-field, two-run blast in the bottom of the ninth closed the gap to six runs, before Nichols (4-4) finished off the victory by completing his third inning of work.
In addition to Wilmsmeyer’s three-hit afternoon, Zeisler and Mann each drove in four runs to lead Mizzou.
TIGER NOTEBOOK
- Mizzou dropped to 11-16 all-time versus Ole Miss and 5-3 against the Rebels at home
- Despite the loss, the Tigers secured their first SEC series win since an opening weekend sweep of Tennessee, March 17-19
- The Tigers fell to 16-7 at home this spring
- Wilmsmeyer’s two home runs marked his first multi-homer performance as a Tiger
- Mann sits four home runs shy of Jacob Priday’s all-time Mizzou record of 49 career long balls
- Mann also recorded a home run for the fourth consecutive game, matching Zeisler for the longest such streak by a Mizzou hitter since 2001
- Mann hit .500 (5-for-10) and slugged 1.700 with four home runs in the three-game series
- Mann also matched his single-season high of 17 home runs from last season, both of which represent the most by a Tiger hitter during the BBCOR era (2011-present)
- The 20 runs scored by the Rebels represent the most allowed by a Mizzou pitching staff during the Steve Bieser era (2017-present) and the most by an opponent overall since a February 2011 loss to Charlotte, in which the Tigers surrendered 22 runs
- The Tigers recorded 13 hits for the third time in four games this week
- Mizzou’s 14 runs marks its third-best total of the season, trailing a 17-run day vs. Lindenwood (Feb. 28) and a 15-run performance vs. Texas Southern (March 5)
- Zeisler extended his consecutive games reaching safely streak to 16 straight, dating back to April 11
- Mizzou racked up 15 home runs in the three-game series and increased its season team home run total to 65, moving up to seventh on the program’s single-season list; the Tigers’ season total is the most by a Mizzou team since 1998, when the Tigers hit a school-record 110 homers
- Saturday’s announced attendance of 2,077 marked the Tigers’ 17th crowd of at least 1,000 fans—and their fifth of more than 2,000—in 20 home dates this season
UP NEXT
Mizzou continues its final home stand of the 2023 season Friday (May 12), when it opens a three-game SEC series with Georgia at 6 p.m. at Taylor Stadium. Single-game tickets for next weekend’s series, as well as all Mizzou baseball home games in 2023, can be purchased by calling 1-800-CAT-PAWS, or by visiting MUTigers.com/feature/BSBTix.
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