The No. 8 seed Missouri Tigers pulled off a thrilling victory Wednesday afternoon as they beat the top-seeded Texas Longhorns 6-4 in Oklahoma City in the first round of the Big XII Championship.
The No. 6 seed Kansas State Wildcats pulled off a victory in the nightcap as they took down the No. 3 seed Oklahoma Sooners 5-4. Both wins were the only upsets in the first round of games at the RedHawks field in Oklahoma City. The No. 4 Oklahoma State Cowboys beat the No. 5 Baylor Bears 6-2 in game one of the tournament and No. 2 Texas A&M beat No. 7 Texas Tech 10-5 in game three.
Missouri's three-run sixth inning proved to be the difference in their upset of the Longhorns. With two-outs and nobody on-base the Tigers rallied for those three runs triggered by a Jonah Schmidt three-RBI double. Schmidt went 2-5 with four RBI's on the day to help lead the Tigers to the upset victory.
Kansas State scored the go-ahead and eventual game-winner in the top of the ninth inning on a two-out RBI-single from Ross Kivett. Kivett led the Cats going 4-5 with 2 RBI's and a stolen base.
Missouri will take on Oklahoma State at 4:00 on Thursday afternoon while Kansas State will take on Texas A&M at 7:30pm.
The second game of these double-elimination tournaments are the most critical for teams setting themselves up for a championship-run. The road gets a little bumpy for teams that have to fight their way through a losers bracket in a win-or-go-home mode. Both the Wildcats and Tigers are needing a strong-showing in this championship in order to have a chance at a regional birth. Their roads will become much smoother if they can pull off victories Thursday.