Missouri 5, Texas A&M 2

Wednesday, May 20

Oklahoma City, Okla.

4:30 PM

Texas A&M

34-22

Missouri

33-23

Texas A&M

Missouri

May 20, 2009 | Baseball

Box Score

By: Texas A&M Athletics

May 20, 2009

Head Coach Childress & OF Colligan
Missouri Coach Tim Jamieson, Kyle Gibson,
Ryan Lollis, Steve Gray

Final Stats

OKLAHOMA CITY - Missouri's Kyle Gibson allowed three hits and struck out seven over six shutout innings to lead the third-seeded Tigers to a 5-2 win over No. 6-seed Texas A&M in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship Wednesday afternoon before 5,047 fans at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark.

The Aggies rallied in the ninth off the Mizzou bullpen, scoring twice and bringing the tying run to the plate, but Nick Tepesch entered in relief and got the final two outs on grounders to end the threat and pick up his first save of the season.

A&M (34-22) suffered its fourth straight setback, while the Tigers (33-23) picked up their fourth straight victory and won for the 12th time in their last 14 games.

Mizzou drew a lead walk in its half of the first that would lead to the game's first run. Following a free pass to Austin Holt, Ryan Lollis laced a grounder near the third base bag that bounced off the glove of a diving Caleb Shofner and towards the stands just past the Tiger dugout. The double put two in scoring position for Greg Folgia, who lifted a fly ball to center that scored Holt and gave MU a 1-0 lead.

Folgia would make the score 2-0 in the third with another sac fly that brought home Lollis, who tripled to the left center field gap one batter earlier.

Steve Gray doubled the lead with a two-run home run into the left-field bleachers in the fourth.

Mizzou added an unearned run off reliever Alex Wilson in the sixth. After a leadoff walk, an error on a potential double-play ball put runners at the corners with no outs. Tiger shortstop Michael Liberto then picked up the RBI on an infield grounder to make the score 5-0.

A one-out walk to David Alleman drove Gonzalez home on an infield grounder that was misplayed. A wild pitch then brought Smith in and made the score 5-2. After a walk brought the tying run to the plate, Tepesch was then called out of the pen and got the final two outs.

Kyle Colligan went 2-for-3 to lead A&M at the plate, while Lollis and Gray had two hits apiece for Mizzou.

Ehlert (5-1) went three innings, giving up three hits, two runs (both earned) and a walk while striking out two in suffering his first loss of the season.

Gibson (10-3) picked up his 10th win of the year, allowing hits in the first, fifth and sixth innings. He walked three, hit two and fanned seven on the afternoon.

The Aggies will have a day off before resuming play in the tournament Friday evening at 7:30 against the No. 2-seeded and No. 8-ranked Oklahoma Sooners.

POSTGAME NOTES

• Texas A&M is now 16-19 all time in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship and 14-13 In games played at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark.

• Joe Patterson saw his career-high hit streak snapped at 10 games.

• The Aggies now lead the all-time series with Mizzou, 37-27-1...the teams have split their only two meetings in the Big 12 Championship (2008 and 2009).

• Game-time temperature was 79 degrees with clear skies and winds blowing out to left at 11 miles per hour.

POSTGAME QUOTES

A&M HEAD COACH Rob Childress: "(Kyle) Gibson wasn't overpowering the way he was last time. But what he did was pitch. He threw strikes, expanded down in the zone, threw three pitches for a strike...he did a great job. A lot of guys can go out and compete and do well when they have their `A' stuff. Great pitchers find a way to get it done when they have their `B' stuff and aren't 100 percent. Kyle Gibson definitely is a great one."

(on the offensive struggles) "It comes down to guys stepping up and getting it done. And we haven't done that the last four games. We're not asking our guys to do anything more than they can do. We've got a pretty good lineup and they've got to go out there and play up to their potential. I'm looking forward to getting back out on the field, I wish we played tomorrow."

(on the rest of the week) "Our plan is to win this tournament. We're going to come out and get after Oklahoma (Friday) and give them everything we got, hopefully come out on the winning end and then Texas Tech, and let the cards fall where they may. But we came here to win this tournament and we're not done yet, I can tell you that."

A&M SENIOR CF Kyle Colligan: (on struggling with runners in scoring position) "You can't do anything about what's happened. You have to get better and try to work out what you're not doing right and keep plugging away. It can only get better. You can't be negative. At this point in time, we have a limited time together, and we have to do what we need to do in order to succeed, and that's not be negative. We have to get it done, plain and simple. We have to step up, myself included."

MISSOURI COACH TIM JAMIESON: "I'm just happy we came away with a win. It was kind of a strange-feeling game. I thought we did some things real well offensively early. Kyle did not have his best stuff, but he competed and fortunately we had a couple of relievers that came in and (did a good job)."

(on turning three double plays) "Obviously they were good pitches, because the balls weren't hit really hard and they took big hops. Our infielders did a good job finishing the plays off. They came at the right time."