Murray State University Athletics
Murray State
32-18, 0
Valparaiso
14-32, 0
Garner Walks It Off For The Racers In Series Opener
5/10/2024 9:52:00 PM | Baseball
With Taylor Howell’s grand slam, he is now tied for second all-time in single-season home runs.
Murray State took the lead in the first inning with five runs scored. Drew Vogel led off with a solo home run for his second-straight game with a home run and his 18th of the year. After a Dustin Mercer infield single and back-to-back walks from Carson Garner and Jonathan Hogart, Taylor Howell belted an opposite-field grand slam for his team-leading 19th home run of the season to put the Racers up 5-0.
With Howell's grand slam, the Racers now have grand slams in back-to-back games and Howell is tied for the second-most single-season home runs in program history. He is three shy of tying the program record of 22 set by Wes Cunningham in 2010.
Valparaiso plated a pair in the second on an RBI single and a fielding error, but an RBI double from Garner in the home half pushed the Racers to a 6-2 lead going into the third inning. Vogel extended MSU's lead back to five with an RBI double in the sixth.
The Beacons plated two more runs on a pair of RBI singles in the seventh, but Murray State matched with an RBI double from Dan Tauken and an RBI base hit off the bat of Riley Hawthorne to make it 9-4 heading into the eighth.
Garner's second RBI double of the game in the eighth gave the Racers their largest lead of the night at 10-4, but a pair of three-run home runs from the Beacons tied the game in the ninth and forced it into extra innings. Nathan Holler retired the Beacons in order to start the 10th on a pair of flyouts and a lineout.
To lead off the 10th, Vogel singled up the middle to give the redshirt junior the cycle after he tripled in the fourth inning. It was the fourth cycle in program history and the first for the Racers since 2015. Mercer then singled through the right side of the infield to put the winning run at third base with Garner coming up to bat.
On a 1-2 count, Garner singled to the left-center gap to give the Racers the walk-off victory.
Holler earned his fourth win of the year, moving him to 4-0 on the season. The senior tossed 1 1/3 innings allowing one run on two hits with no walks and a strikeout.
Garner extended his reached-base streak to 12 games, while Hogart and Ethan Krizen extended their streaks to nine-straight games.
Game 2 of the weekend series is set for Saturday, May 11 at 5 p.m. CT at Reagan Field.
For more information on the Murray State baseball program, visit GoRacers.com or @RacersBaseball on Instagram and X.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Holler, Nathan (4-0)
L: Jablonski, Grant (3-2)
Batting:
2B: Reinertson, Kade 1
HR: Schmack, Kyle 1 ; Giusti, Connor 1
RBI: Renfro, Brady 1 ; Schmack, Kyle 3 ; Maka, Ryan 1 ; Giusti, Connor 3 ; Thurston, Alex 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Hannahs, Kaleb 1 ; Renfro, Brady 2 ; Schmack, Kyle 1 ; Husmann, Carson 1 ; Denty, Kevin 2 ; Giusti, Connor 1 ; Reinertson, Kade 1 ; Thurston, Alex 1
HBP: Denty, Kevin 1
Batting:
2B: Vogel, Drew 1 ; Garner, Carson 2 ; Tauken, Dan 1 ; Krizen, Ethan 1
3B: Vogel, Drew 1
HR: Vogel, Drew 1 ; Howell, Taylor 1
RBI: Vogel, Drew 2 ; Garner, Carson 3 ; Tauken, Dan 1 ; Howell, Taylor 4 ; Hawthorne, Riley 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Vogel, Drew 2 ; Mercer, Dustin 2 ; Garner, Carson 1 ; Hogart, Jonathan 2 ; Tauken, Dan 1 ; Howell, Taylor 1 ; Krizen, Ethan 1 ; Estes, Parker 1
SB: Mercer, Dustin 1 ; Hawthorne, Riley 1
