Southern prepares for final homestand of season
The Lions celebrating a victory over Fort Hays State on Apr. 22, 2016 at Warren Turner Field. Southern trailed Hays 2-1 heading into the bottom of the eighth. The Lions unloaded four runs that inning taking a 5-2 lead and going on to win the ballgame. Southern is playing host to Lincoln for a three game series starting on Friday. Lincoln is currently on a 35-game losing streak. Southern are heavy favorites and should breeze through Lincoln in prepreation for Northeastern State.
The conference tournament is just around the corner and the Missouri
Southern Lions are trying to position themselves as best they can as the season winds down.
After winning the three game series this past weekend against Fort Hayes, the Lions have won six of their last 12 games. Their 18-15 conference record isn’t exactly what they’ve been striving for, but it has kept them aflot as they sit sixth in the conference, which isn’t terrible, but nowhere near what they had planned for coming into the season.
This doesn’t mean certain doom for the team; there have been much lower seeds in sports history making a cinderella type run at a championship. Luckily for the Lions they still have seven games to go and they are all conference games, giving them a chance to really jump up in the standings.
They are only one game behind Northwest Missouri and three games behind Emporia State in the standings. If Southern can finish the regular season strong and win each of their next six games they could shoot up and capture the four seed at the most and be set up to make a deep run into the postseason.
If a run like that is going to happen it will start with some of the seniors that lead this team. Payton Walker, the MSSU career strikeout leader, Jesse Rall the single season homeun record holder will be asked to continue leading the team as each games
becomes more and more important. Chris Hoffman, Jackson Cain, Cody Hutchinson, and Hayden Steele are also ready to continue producing at a high level.
Missouri Southern lost on Wednesday against Pittsburg State. Southern held a one run lead headng into the bottom of the ninth after junior Trever Burkdoll hit the go ahead homer in the top of the ninth. Senior Cody Hutchinson entered the game and gave up two runs on two hits as PSU completed the comeback victory.
Southern starts their final home three game homestand today against Lincoln University.
Winning conference is out of the question for this year but there’s still a chance that they end up winning the conference tournament as it all starts with these next six games.
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