A regular-season record crowd of 3,207 at Taylor Stadium saw a contest on an afternoon with little cloud cover. For all nine innings, Columbia had enough wind to launch a combined five home runs between the two rivals, four of which were Jayhawks homers over the wall in what was ultimately a Border War defeat for Mizzou. The defeat marked the fifth straight for Kerrick Jackson’s group, all coming on home turf.
In terms of promotion, Mizzou brought all of the stops. The 2.99 beer and hot dogs, flashy
throwback hats for all Missouri students living in residential dorms and the in person appearance of several MU athletes in major revenue sports.
One in particular, Tigers running back Jamal Roberts, who’s 63-yard game-sealing touchdown against the Jayhawks back in September, which fired up the Tiger contingent and the thousands of students who made the rowdy atmosphere.
The same energy wasn’t quite brought on the field. At least not enough for the first three innings for the Tigers, as the Jayhawks took a commanding 6-0 lead, getting to the Tigers’ pitching early. Then, the fourth inning rolled around, and a small spark set gasoline to the eight-run heater that Kerrick Jackson’s offense went on against three total pitchers from Kansas, including two pitching changes to the delight of the sellout crowd.
THE EIGHT-RUN RALLY
After three innings of two total hits and no runners left in scoring position, a strikeout from the freshman Blaize Ward seemed just to continue the story that was being written. A walk from freshman outfielder Donovan Jordan brought up the freshman catcher Juliomar Campos, who was making his third start of the season.
Whether it was three games or three months, he’d played, Campos rose to the occasion. A two-run shot over the wall in right-center field gave the Tigers fans something to cheer about for the first time all game long. Little did they know, it was just getting started.
“We’ve talked about our freshmen, there’s a true freshman there that can step in,” Jackson said. “Mateo (Serna) was sick today, so he wasn’t here. Juliomar does a good job behind the plate. One thing we know about him, he’s gonna swing, and he does strike out a lot, so that’s the gift and the curse of it. He battled during that at-bat, and then you saw what he’s capable of doing, what he can do when he puts the barrel on the ball.”
The gift of the free pass and a pair of singles, in order from Keegan Knutson, Tyler Macon and Kam Durnin gave the Tigers the absolute best case scenario. Kayden Peer, bases juiced, momentum swinger. Peer gave the black and gold, exactly that with his two-run single.
One batter later, designated hitter Jase Woita was hit by a pitch, and the second pitching change of the evening occurred, and in perfect sync, the Tigers’ PA system played Mr. Brightside, firing up the Mizzou faithful and the dugout in sync.
That’s the best home crowd I’ve ever seen,” Woita said. “Huge shoutout to them. They showed up, showed out, and totally fired us up that inning. They put pressure on their pitchers to make some pitches and fired us up in the box…I’m getting chills thinking about it right now.”
Post rivalry anthem, the freshman, Blaize Ward, lit up Taylor Stadium as I’ve never seen before, with a bases-clearing, three-run triple. Another Freshman, Donovan Jordan, scored Ward on an RBI double right after, and the once quiet stadium had a highly ruckus atmosphere.
In the moment, Missouri taking an 8-7 lead, despite it being small, could’ve easily been a back-breaker for the Jayhawks. That wasn’t in their plans.
ROUGH START AND ENDING FOR THE TIGERS’ PITCHING
PJ Green was on the bump for the Tigers to open. Both of his starts this season have come on a Tuesday, both against Missouri rivals Illinois and Kansas.
Kansas started getting to him right away as Cade Baldridge took a 3–1 pitch from PJ Green in the first and sent it out to center for a solo homer. Despite a mound meeting from Drew Dickinson after a walk from Green, another walk and a single from Tyson Owens made it 2–0 Jayhawks in the second.
In the third, Augusto Mungarrieta got Green again with a 390‑foot shot to right‑center for his ninth homer of the season. Dylan Schlotterback added another run on a fielder’s choice as the inning kept moving, and a pitching change, Jackson Sobel came in after that, and it didn’t slow down the Jayhawks offense. Brady Ballinger opened the fourth by turning on a 3–2 pitch from Sobel and sending it to right‑center for a two‑run homer.
Sam Rosand came in following Sobel and gave the Tigers what they desperately needed. Innings with stability and zeros. Despite one run, not earned, on an RBI single, Rosand had few blemishes throughout his 2.2 innings of work, as did the pitcher who replaced him at the start of the seventh inning, Kadden Drew.
The heartbeat (for Rosand) never goes over, you know, then doesn’t rise, and he just gets out there and just works and works and works and gets things done for us.
The eighth inning very much brought the rocky pastures for Drew after a 1-2-3 seventh, a single, and a balk kickstarted the inning, followed up by an RBI single hit by Jordan Bach, tying the game up at 8, leaving runners on first and second, as Jackson replaced Drew.
One batter later, Kansas flipped any Missouri momentum on its head, on a three-run shot from Tyson Leblanc, that sucked the air out of the stadium. A rocky start and a finish, concluded by the fourth homer of the day, surrendered bye the Tigers staff.
“When you go back, and you look at some of the hits that they got early to start, you get some little slap hits to the middle on the change-up, and some little things here and there,” Jackson said. “Again, at least in that situation, we weren’t necessarily executing pitches where we wanted them to be executed, and they just did a good job of putting the ball in play and giving themselves a chance.”
THE ATMOSPHERE
The stadium felt bigger than a regular Tuesday night. A record crowd for a regular season game thoroughly packed Taylor Stadium to the brim for the second leg of the Border showdown and it left me with the feeling of wanting to see this not just for this game, but more home games in the future.
“Most of the time we don’t have a big crowd here, and so when we’re playing someplace else, we talk about taking the energy that you’re getting from the crowd,” Jackson said. “Whether or not what they’re saying or what they’re doing, you use that energy to fuel you. That helped with our guys today, and being able to get fueled by that energy.”
In the fourth inning, each foul ball, each pitch taken for a ball got a rise and Ward’s bases-clearing triple had the place rocking. Following the three-run inning by the Jayhawks, the bottom of the ninth saw the Tigers put runners on base, starting with a leadoff walk from Peer, who stole second and later, a free pass issued to Cameron Benson.
Donovan Jordan had the chance to be the hero who tied the game for Missouri, with the crowd fully behind him, and ultimately grounded out, giving Kansas the 11-8 victory. The air might have left the building in the eighth, but the ninth certainly didn’t see a deflation of the rivalry atmosphere.
NEXT UP
It’s back to SEC play for Missouri, as they’ll travel to Lexington to clash with the No. 24 Kentucky Wildcats in a 3-game set. As April begins, the Tigers’ chances to pick up conference victories like they were able to do in Knoxville will continue to be on the table.
“If we just play good baseball, I told our guys in our post-game, but out of the 13 games that we lost, there’s not one of those games that I walk away from that game saying, we played really well, and they were just better than us today,” Jackson said. “We have a lot of self-inflicted wounds, and so we have to be able to fix that.”
