For Missouri State baseball, its thrilling walk-off win vs. Mizzou came at the right time

Down to the last out in the bottom of the ninth, Missouri State found itself behind 2-0 with the bases loaded against its rival from up north.

Senior Jaden Rolffs sent a single into right-center to bring two runs home — after the Bears had left seven men on base throughout the night including twice with the bases loaded. The game was tied.

Freshman Hayden Moore, from Edwardsville, Illinois, stepped up to the plate and noticed the pitcher was struggling with his command after walking two earlier in the inning and missing his mark again as he stood in the batter's box.

After a meeting at the mound, Moore knew to look for a fastball up the middle on the first pitch out of the break. He got what he was looking for as he sent the ball into the sky.

The ball was carrying but it wasn't going to clear the wall. Moore kept his eye on the left-fielder who started to lose his footing while retreating to the warning track. The left-fielder fell as the centerfielder came flying in and made a desperation dive to try and send the game into extras.

The ball hit the ground and bounced over the wall as the Bears stormed out of the dugout and mobbed Moore into the outfield.

"It's something you can't really explain," Moore said. "I saw him coming in and thought something was going to happen. It's something that I always wanted to experience and I'm glad I did."

Missouri State (18-18) won a thrilling 3-2 come-from-behind matchup with Mizzou (22-16) at Hammons Field on Tuesday night. The win is the Bears' fourth straight as they move past a seven-game losing skid just before sweeping Valparaiso and Tuesday's thriller.

The lead-up to the rally was aided by some of the best bullpen pitching the Bears have received all year which stems from players finally getting healthy.

Throughout the Bears' seven-game losing streak, the bullpen struggled as they looked primarily to two arms. More was going to be needed if the team was to have any chance at challenging in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in late May or even avoid being among the bottom teams in the Valley.

MSU started to get some help from its bullpen on the tail-end of the skid when the Bears lost 6-5 at Mizzou last week. Five relievers made an appearance in the game and each allowed one or zero hits.

Solid pitching continued into a weekend series at Valparaiso which the Bears swept by a combined score of 29-7 in three games. Each starter went five or more innings and no reliever in any of the games allowed more than three hits.

Against the Tigers, no pitcher allowed more than two hits while junior Dan Merrill went four innings, allowed two hits and struck out five for maybe his best performance of the season.

"It's taken us a while to get our roles situated in the pen," 40th-year head coach Keith Guttin said. "Some of it because of injury, some of it because of performance but I think lining those guys up and not using them all and not stretching them out as much. I think some of those guys will be able to pitch (Wednesday against Saint Louis)."

One addition to the Bears' bullpen is the return of redshirt senior Ty Buckner who has been plagued by injuries since being a key arm on the Bears as a freshman when he helped lead the Bears to their last NCAA Tournament appearance in 2018.

Since then, Buckner has torn his Achilles in the days before the 2019 season. He couldn't play the 2020 season after surgery to repair a torn hip labrum. And then after making three starts for the Bears in 2021, he required Tommy John surgery which ended yet another season.

Buckner made his second appearance of the season as he started Tuesday's game against the Tigers. He threw one hitless inning with a strikeout before being removed with a big smile on his face.

"It was tough there for a while but you just have to have the perseverance," Buckner said. "You can do anything with these guys and this staff and they've meant a lot to me throughout my journey here. It's just great to be back with the guys especially with that big win right there."

Buckner's role should continue to expand with more innings and he won't be the only player the Bears will bring back from injury for the rest of the season. The Bears also hope for the return of sophomore pitcher Eric Loomis along with redshirt-senior outfielder Cam Cratic and junior infielder Will Duff.

The Bears can use them over the next month as they try and climb up the Valley standings. They are currently tied for sixth place and are two games behind fourth. A top-four finish would keep the Bears away from playing in an elimination play-in game during the conference tournament at Hammons Field.

After a make-up game against Saint Louis on Wednesday, the Bears head to Indiana State for a weekend series starting Friday before traveling to Arkansas on Tuesday. The Bears are home the following two weekends with a series against each Southern Illinois and Illinois State.

"The guys are really just coming together," Buckner said. "We had a little bit of a losing skid there for a while but we're back together and we're good to go. We're going to finish the season strong."

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or Twitter at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the co-host of Sports Talk on Jock Radio weekdays from 4-6 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State baseball: Bears rally, walk-off to beat Mizzou