Columbia, Mo. – This evening the Columbia College men's baseball team was back in action playing on their home field for the first time this season as they hosted the Missouri Valley College Vikings. Columbia had a strong showing in the game as they outscored the Vikings 14-4 to end the game in seven innings. The Cougars are now 14-8 on the season and 9-4 in conference play.
 
The Cougars started the game with three runs scored in the first inning to take the lead. The Vikings were able to get on the board in the second scoring a run, making it a 3-1 game in the Cougars favor. Columbia College was able to add two more runs in the third to extend their lead 5-1. The Cougars had a great inning in the fourth as they scored a total of five runs, including a bomb by Dalton Bealmer for a three-run homerun, his fifth of the season. The Vikings came back fighting in the fifth as they scored two runs to cut the Cougars lead 10-3. Kenny Piper started the fifth inning strong with a solo homerun followed by another run. Both Missouri Valley and Columbia College added another run in the sixth, but the Cougars scored again in the seventh to end the game.
 
Reid Browning (2-0) was the starting pitcher for the Cougars as he allowed just one earned run and struck out a batter in two innings of play. Roy Moore (0-1), Devin Still (0-1), Josiah Imhoff (2-0), Mark Haire, Lane Threlkeld, Andrew Baker, and Blake Thompson came in to relieve Browning for a combined four hits allowed while striking out seven batters in the last five innings. Offensively, the Cougars were led by Dalton Bealmer as he had three hits with a run scored and five RBI, Kenny Piper who had three hits with three runs scored and three RBI, and Ethan Howser who also had three hits while scoring three runs and had one RBI to round out the top performers for the Cougars.
 
The baseball team is back in action Friday, March 22^nd as they host the Missouri Baptist University Spartans in game one of an AMC three game series. First pitch is set to start at 6 p.m.