JOPLIN, Mo. — The No. 21 Missouri Southern baseball team fell behind early and couldn’t come back, dropping a mid-week, non-conference matchup to Emporia State, 9-3 today at Warren Turner Field.
Southern (26-13) got a pair of hits from Dexter Swims and two RBIs from Freddie Landers to lead the offense for the Lions. Landers, Mike Million, Ryan Hunter, Jon Leighton and Matt Miller had a hit each with Swims, Hunter and Miller scoring a run. Leighton had the other RBI.
Cole Gacke started and picked up the loss to fall to 1-2 on the season. Joey Reeves pitched five strong innings with six strikeouts, while Bradly Hershey and Brennon Covington threw in relief, as well.
ESU (22-15) got three hits each from Brian Grove, Aaron Dees and Connor Hurst.
The Hornets pushed three runs across in the first inning to go up 3-0 after one. The Lions got a run back in the third on an RBI single from Leighton, scoring Hunter after Hunter had led off the inning with a triple.
ESU got two more in the top of the sixth, before the Lions answered back with an RBI double from Landers in the bottom half of the inning, scoring Swims and Miller. The Hornets added two more runs in each of the seventh and eighth innings.
Southern will be back in action this weekend as the Lions play host to Northeastern State on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Game times on Thursday and Friday will be 6 p.m. with Saturday’s game starting at 1 p.m.
