Canton, Mo. – This afternoon the Columbia College baseball team was back in action when they traveled to Canton, Missouri, to take on Culver-Stockton (Mo.) College in a nonconference matchup. Prior to the game, the NAIA national office announced its second regular season 2017 Baseball Top 25 Poll. For the first time ever, the Columbia College baseball team was receiving votes in the poll. As for today's game, the Cougars were able to defeat the Wildcats by a final score of 3-2 and improved to 20-7 on the season.
The Cougars got off to a slow start in the game as the Wildcats were able to take an early 2-0 lead in the contest after scoring two quick runs in their half of the first. However, that was all the runs they would get as Columbia College was able to cut the score in half in the top of the third inning when Josh Miller started the inning off with a double and then later came around to score on an RBI double from
Ethan Howser. The score remained 2-1 until the Cougars half of the sixth inning when
Kenny Piper was able to give Columbia their first lead of the ball game with a deep homerun over the left field wall scoring
Andrew Warner and giving the Cougars a 3-2 lead. The Wildcats did their best they could to get back into the game but the Cougars were able to close them out down the final stretch and solidify their 12
th win in a row.
Tanner Allen was the starting pitcher in this one for Columbia allowing one hit and two earned runs in two innings of work.
Mark Haire was the winning pitcher for the Cougars going 1.1 innings while getting all four batters out that he faced. Offensively, Columbia College was led by
Tim Fox who went 2-4 and
Kenny Piper who went 1-4 with two RBI's and a run scored. In addition,
Andrew Warner was able to extend his hitting streak to 18 straight games after going 1-4 this afternoon.
The Cougars are back in action on Thursday, March 23
rd when they host Missouri Baptist University for an AMC doubleheader. The first game is set to start at 6 p.m. at Atkins Park with the second game to immediately follow.
