Diamond sports back in action mid-week against Drake, kansas

Mar 22, 2023 - 10:00 AM

Missouri’s diamond sports teams are back in the field today, as softball faces off against Drake (6-16, 0-3 MVC) at Mizzou Softball Stadium today at 5:30pm and baseball faces kansas at 6pm in Kansas City.

We’ll start with softball.

Per MUTigers.com, Mizzou and Drake faced each other 30 times in their history, and the Tigers hold a 26-4 lead. They last played two games in March 2021, and Mizzou came away victorious, winning 5-0 and 10-2, respectively.

When we last saw the Tigers (19-11, 1-5 SEC) in action, they were in The Swamp, facing off against the then #8/11 Florida Gators. While the Tigers only got one win in the series, taking the first game 7-3 on St. Patty’s Day, they were thisclose to taking the entire series if not for a couple of unfortunate miscues in late-game situations that allowed the Gators to end the remaining two games victorious, both 4-3.

Drake, on the other hand, is coming off an 0-3 weekend in Springfield, MO against MO State. They were shut out in two of the three games 0-11 and 0-3, and managed only a run in the 1-10 loss on Saturday.

Drake will have their hands full with this Tiger lineup, especially the handful currently riding hot streaks from the past week.

• Alex Honnold smashed two doubles in the Ilinois DH and two multi-run homers in game 1 of the Florida series. She’s batting a hot .500 in the last week with a 1.071 SLG% and .611 OB%.
• Kara Daly had a .333 BA on the week with three doubles, a triple, and five RBI
• Katie Chester hit .300 in her four starts last week and reached base in each of the three Florida games.
• Chantice Phillips hit. 308 with four runs, two doubles, and an RBI. She had a hit in each of the Florida games, including two extra-base hits.
• Jenna Laird is on an 11-game on-base streak and hit .400 this past week. She’s also on a four-game hitting streak.

On to the sports team no one can stop talking about, MIZZOU BASEBALL, heads out to the home of the Royals, Kauffman Stadium, for the fifth time to take on the kansas jayhawks. This will be the 349th meeting between the rivals, and Mizzou leads the overall series, 217-129-2. Weirdly enough, the jayhawks have taken each of the Kauffman games (EW), but Mizzou beat them 14-6 last year at home.

The fightin’ Steve Biesers find themselves ranked nationally anywhere between no. 15-21, and are off to their best start since 2017. The Tigers are winners of 5 in a row, and over the weekend, put the college baseball community on notice, sweeping the then-no. 2 Tennessee Volunteers and outscoring them 23-6. Trevor Austin came up HUGE in the series, hitting .556 with four runs scored and four RBI.

The jayhawks are 8-10 so far this season, and per MUTigers.com, snapped a six-game slide with a 12-8 win over The Citadel. Per MUTigers.com, Karter Muck is expected to start for... that team, while RHP Logan Lunceford is expected to start for Mizzou.

Matt Michaels, play-by-play announcer for the baseball team, visited the KTRS 550 Big Sports Show to chat all things baseball. Have a listen!

Let’s hope their battle against the beakers goes better than that the women’s basketball team, huh?

On to the Links! M-I-Z!

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Yesterday at Rock M

• A new Dive Cuts podcast/videocast was released: A bitter end to a beautiful season. What’s next?
• Sam debuted a piece that we will be updating all Portal SZN: Mizzou Basketball 2023 Transfer Tracker and an updated Scholarship Math that includes the very delayed addition of JuCo star Curt Lewis (Sam was on vacay when he committed, and he’s the keeper of the chart).
• Matt Watkins wrote a lovely comprehensive view of the current roster in his Mizzou Hoops Off-Season Roster Movement
• Time for Part 4(!) of what’s wrong with Mizzou’s running game, from Nate the Great. In this edition, he’s talking the Offensive Line.
• IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: RIP 2022-23 Mizzou Basketball (Sam Snelling) | Year One of the Dennis Gates Era: A Recap (Parker Gillam)

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More Links:

Hoops

• Columbia Missourian: Tigers’ intriguing offseason begins after NCAA Tournament loss (Jack Knowlton)
• Columbia Tribune: It came out a few days ago, but it’s incredible, so I’m sharing it again. What happens when someone else’s dream is bigger? (Chris Kwiecinski)

How would you balance the emotion of knowing you’re playing the No. 15 seed, a game Missouri was supposed to win, only to read each sinking line that Princeton would just have that bigger dream in the final pages of that script? It’s heartbreaking. It can’t end like that, can it? It can when someone else’s dream is bigger.

• PowerMizzou ($$): 2023 Mizzou Hoops Transfer Tracker (Gabe DeArmond) | Listen to the final episode of Mizzou, That’s Who with Maggie, Gabe and Tucker [FREE!]
• Coaching Carousel news: Tipsheet: Coaching carousel yields pain for Anderson, gain for Pitino (Jeff Gordon, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) | Mike Anderson to file lawsuit vs. St. John’s over firing (Myron Medcalf, ESPN)

• Impressive. Hate the colors here though. Red normally screams “bad”

Football

• Marcus Johnson to Purdue news: Mizzou’s offensive line coach Marcus Johnson leaves for Purdue. Here’s what it means for the Tigers (Matt Stahl, Columbia Tribune) | MU assistant coach Johnson leaves to join Purdue’s staff (Wendell Shepherd, Jr & Jack Knowlton, Missourian) | Assistant head coach & OL coach Marcus Johnson to join Purdue staff (Jarod Hamilton) | Mizzou football loses offensive line coach Marcus Johnson to Purdue (Dave Matter, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

• Our guy Parker, who moonlights as a contributor for The Transfer Portal CFB, is doing big things!

• Pro Day is coming! Friday!

• Had to chuckle at this. Such a weird stock image-looking photograph.

Diamond Sports

• SOFTBALL: MU softball hosts Drake on Wednesday, faces No. 21 Auburn this weekend (Maddie Orr, Missourian)
• BASEBALL: Missouri takes on Border War rival Kansas (Ethan Burke, Missourian)
• Wow. Impressive indeed.

• Speaking of pitching as a whole... wow. What a start.

• The hitting has also been great. Witness.

Track & Field

• MU Track and Field’s Sophia Rivera named SEC women’s Co-Field Athlete of the Week (Joel Boenitz)

Per MUTigers.com, Rivera set a new program record and climbed to the top of the national leaderboard in the javelin with a mark of 57.67m / 189-2.

• HUGE congrats to Natasha Kaiser-Brown, associate head track & field coach, who has been honored with the Jefferson Club Golden Quill Alumni Excellence Award as announced by the club’s board of trustees on Wednesday. Per MUTigers.com, the award “recognizes alumni who demonstrate excellence in their chosen field and/or outstanding achievement; and who reflect the core values of Mizzou: Respect, Responsibility, Discovery and Excellence.”

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