Mizzou Links for March 21, 2022.

Baseball and softball struggle through the last weekend of winter

Weekends are supposed to be easy. Light. Fun. Relaxing. Maybe someone should remind the Mizzou diamond sports.

It was a tough weekend for baseball and softball, which combined to go 1-6 as Steve Bieser’s Tigers were swept at Vanderbilt and Larissa Anderson’s Tigers lost three of four games at their own tournament.

Let’s start with the men, shall we?

Mizzou Baseball had a chance to avoid a sweep against No. 4 Vanderbilt on Sunday, but fell victim to a four-run seventh inning and eventually dropped the final game of the series 7-4.

The Tigers were up 4-3 headed into the final innings of the game before the Commodores (17-2) finally broke through against Missouri’s bullpen.

To lead off the inning, Landry gave up a second pair of back-to-back home runs that put Vanderbilt up for good. After the homers, Landry was taken out of the game in favor of Carter Rustad, who made things worse.

A failed pickoff attempt scored one runner and put another in scoring position. The second runner later scored off a double.

Getting outscored 28-6 isn’t a great way to open SEC play, but it hurts especially bad when you had a win in the bag that late in the game. It’s a tough break for Mizzou, which falls to 12-5 on the season. They’ll head home next weekend, but the opponent — No. 3 Arkansas — won’t make things any easier on them.

Back in Columbia, things weren’t going much better for Larissa Anderson’s team. The Tigers welcomed No. 12 Northwestern, just-out-of-the-top-25 Stanford, and Ball State to CoMo for the Mizzou Classic and ended up with a less-than-classic performance. Missouri dropped their first three games (one to each opponent, the first two in extras) before closing out the weekend with a 5-0 win over Stanford.

Some of Mizzou’s struggles can be attributed to the loss of Casidy Chautmont, the Tigers’ best hitter.

Missouri will get a chance to rebound on Wednesday against Western Illinois before heading to Ole Mis next weekend.

---

Yesterday at Rock M

• In which Sam argues that Dennis Gates may make a lot more sense than we think
• In which Karen previewed (and y’all commented) on Mizzou Softball’s final day of a pretty rough weekend

---

More Links:

• Can someone teach me a pre-work ritual similar to Keegan O’Toole’s pre-match ritual? I think I could use this sort of motivation.

Keegan O’Toole warmed up in the tunnel here at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday night wearing a gold shirt displaying the words “THE CHAMP IS HERE” as well as a picture of a professional wrestling belt.

Turns out, that warm-up gear was something of a premonition.

Cody Goodwin detailed the routine, and spoke to O’Toole about injuries he sustained during his championship run, at the Columbia Tribune.

• Speaking of O’Toole, his teammate Noah Surtin had some thoughts on the team’s performance in the NCAA Championships.

• Not sure how many of you follow former Mizzou Tiger Najeeb Echols on Twitter, but he’s understandably a big fan of the Dennis Gates hire considering they were high school teammates.
• ICYMI from the weekend: Mizzou Gymnastics is on the way up!

• Mizzou Women’s Golf tied for 15th this weekend at the MountainView Collegiate, led by Noelle Beijer and her third top 25 finish of the season.
• Mizzou Tennis fell to 6-12 on the season after dropping yesterday’s match against South Carolina.
• If you’re looking to sign up for ESPN+, Rock M Nation now has an affiliate link: click Here for ESPN+ Now!
• If you’re looking to sign up for a new streaming service, you can try FuboTV: click HERE for FuboTV access — FuboTV now has ESPN, CBS, FS1 and more sports channels.
  (** RockMNation has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though RockMNation may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.**)