WARRENSBURG - Drury's Panthers plated eight runs over the final two innings to break open a tight game and beat No. 16 Central Missouri 15-7 in a non-conference baseball contest Wednesday night at Crane Stadium.
The Panthers, in winning their fifth straight game, improved to 13-8. Central Missouri fell to 12-5 in a game that took more than four and a half hours - with a short lightning delay mixed in - to complete.
Harrison Waters hit a three-run homer in the ninth as part of a five run Panther uprising to seal the victory. R.J. Knese had three hits, while Waters, Joe Rohlfing, Tyler Goss, Jason Hall and Joel Potts had two hits each to lead Drury's 14-hit attack.
Goss drove in four runs, while Rohlfing went 2-for-5 with three runs, two RBIs and a pair of stolen bases to pace the Panthers.
Drury jumped on top of the Mules 4-0 in the first keyed by an RBI double from Rohlfing and a two-run single by Goss, but watched UCM answer with a grand slam by Stewart Hoover in the bottom of the inning off DU starter Tim Payne to knot it at 4 apiece.
It stayed that way until the bottom of the fifth, when the Mules tacked on a run to take a 5-4 lead. But Drury countered in the sixth with a solo homer by Potts and a two-run double from Goss to grab the 7-5 advantage.
The Mules closed to within a run in the seventh, but Drury added three runs in the eighth when Rohlfing reached on an error, stole second and third and scored on a RBI groundout by Hall to put the Panthers up 8-6, then DU tacked on two more when Hall and Potts came home on a pair of errors following a Waters infield grounder.
Sophomore left-hander Corey Peterson (1-1) picked up the victory, one of seven Drury pitchers who combined to hold the Mules to seven hits in the contest.
The Panthers are now 2-0 all-time against the perennial NCAA-II powerhouse Mules. They will meet again this season, when Central Missouri visits Meador Park for the rematch on April 14.
Drury is on the road this weekend for a key Great Lakes Valley Conference series at West Division favorite Southern Indiana in Evansville. The Panthers, preseason picks for second behind USI in the division, and Screaming Eagles will play a single nine-inning game at 2 p.m. Friday, a noon double-header on Saturday and a single nine again on Sunday at noon to close out the series.
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