Missouri State baseball's win over No. 7 Arkansas showed what Bears are capable of

Nick Rodriguez remembers sitting at his host family's house over the summer when he watched Missouri State baseball for the first time.

The then-Charleston Southern standout watched the Bears play in an NCAA Tournament thriller against Grand Canyon. Trailing by four heading into the top of the ninth, Rodriguez watched future teammates Spencer Nivens and Mason Hull hit home runs that led MSU to a come-from-behind 8-7 win. Rodriguez saw what the Bears were capable of and, for whatever reason, thought of how fun it would be to be a Bear.

In the transfer portal, Rodriguez later reached out to Missouri State coaches. The Freshman All-American later put the pen to paper and signed with Missouri State.

Through the first month and a half of the season, Rodriguez led off for the Bears as they went up and down. Since then, the Bears have caught fire and are turning into the team he thought they would be after watching them on TV for the first time nearly 11 months ago.

"Oh yeah," Rodriguez said. "I wouldn't change anything. I'm very glad I'm here."

Rodriguez got the party started for the Bears when he hit a lead-off home run in Tuesday night's 8-4 win over No. 7 nationally-ranked Arkansas at Hammons Field. It was the Bears' first win over a top-10 opponent since beating the then-No. 4 Razorbacks in Fayetteville a year ago.

Since falling to Arkansas 10 consecutive times from 2007-14, Missouri State is 8-6 against the Razorbacks which includes the 2017 NCAA Fayetteville Regional title.

Missouri State is now the winner of 10 of its last 12, has everyone hitting up and down the lineup, getting better pitching and is getting healthier with just under a month until the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

"I feel good about the way we're playing right now," head coach Keith Guttin said. "I think we caught Arkansas at a time with a lot of injuries but we did what we had to do offensively and I thought our relief pitching was excellent."

Arkansas, coming off a weekend sweep at Georgia, came into the game without two members of its outfield and has been dealing with pitching injuries all season. The Bears got to the Hogs' typical midweek pitcher early and often to create enough distance.

The Bears trailed 2-1 heading into the bottom of the third before they put together a six-run inning. A Zack Stewart bloop single escaped the diving glove of the Arkansas left-fielder to bring Nivens home from third. Taeg Gollert followed one of his two doubles on the night to bring home a pair of runs before Cam Cratic singled him home.

With two outs and Cratic on, Anthony Socci put a ball into the Bears' left-field bullpen for a two-run bomb to take a 7-2 lead. Cody Kelly added another run in the bottom of the fourth with a sacrifice fly to bring Rodriguez home for his second run of the night.

"I thought we got some clutch hitting, particularly early," Guttin said. "We have some veteran guys and we feel like we can create damage in parts of our lineup."

The most encouraging part of the Bears' recent string of success came from the mound with Trey Ziegenbein and Reed Metz contributing out of the bullpen. Both have been healthy which wasn't necessarily the case when the Bears were 11-12 after a March 28 home loss to Oral Roberts.

After Tyler Tscherter threw three innings while allowing four hits and one earned run, Ziegenbein entered and threw three innings of no-hit ball and finished with three strikeouts.

Scott Youngbrandt allowed two hits and two earned runs while recording two outs before Metz, a former Logan-Rogersville standout, relieved him and finished the evening by going 2.1 innings without allowing a hit.

It was Metz's third appearance of the season when he was sidelined with an injury until he made his MSU debut on April 15 at Illinois Chicago. He previously threw a high of 16 pitches before throwing 33 to close out the Hogs. He has allowed three hits and no earned runs through 4.1 innings.

"That's the Reed Metz we were hoping for all year," Guttin said. "That's very, very encouraging."

The pitching looks even better when the bats have been as hot as they've been for the Bears over this stretch. Over the last 12 games, the Bears are averaging 8.9 runs offensively. Seemingly every name in the lineup has shined with Rodriguez, Gollert and Cratic getting the shine on Tuesday when the likes of Nivens, Hull, Stewart and Kelly have had their recent nights as well.

Missouri State is clicking right now with a sub-.500 Valparaiso squad visiting Hammons Field starting with a 6:30 p.m. game on Friday before a 2 p.m. Saturday game and a 1 p.m. game on Sunday. They then play Omaha in Kansas City on Tuesday before a three-game series at Murray State starting May 5.

"We've just kept our head down and just kept moving forward," Rodriguez said. "We've been working hard in practice and pre-game to just keep up the intensity and treating every out equally as important and just competing pitch to pitch to the last out."

Missouri State is now 23-16 with an 11-4 record in the Valley. The Bears sit alone in second place and are one game ahead of Southern Illinois and three behind Indiana State which is on the brink of cracking the top 25. The Bears close the regular season out in back-to-back weekends against the two. An at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament appears unlikely due to some of their close losses to the likes of Mizzou, Kansas, East Carolina and Oklahoma State.

But it was around this time a year ago when the Bears showed glimpses of a team that could make a postseason run and it did by going on an improbable run through the MVC Tournament to secure an automatic bid. After beating the No. 7 team in the country, the Bears have to feel like they're capable of anything.

"It just shows us how good we can be and how good we are when we're playing as a team," Rodriguez said. "That was a really good team and we've played a few this year and have just fallen short. It was kind of nice to come through with that one."

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.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State baseball beats Arkansas in midweek showdown