Hot Hitters – Mercer & Cunningham Lead Racers Past Bruins

Friday, May 9

Nashville, TENN.

4 p.m.

Murray State

33-12, 0

Belmont

23-27, 0

Murray State

Belmont

Photo by: Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

Hot Hitters – Mercer & Cunningham Lead Racers Past Bruins

5/9/2025 6:47:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

The Racers take game-1 of a key weekend set in the Missouri Valley Conference

The Murray State Racers won the first game of their Missouri Valley Conference series Friday 7-3 over the Belmont Bruins at E.S. Rose Park in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Racers (33-12) improved to 15-7 in the MVC and kept their hold on second-place in The Valley.

Game two between the Racers and Bruins begins Saturday at 2 p.m.

The Racers took advantage of some second-inning mistakes by the Bruins to plate four runs, but only three were earned. Dustin Mercer moved into fifth place on the MSU career hit list with a 2-RBI single in the inning. Freshman, Connor Cunningham blasted his fifth home run of his freshman season with a man on in the 6^th inning for a 6-2 MSU lead.

Nic Schutte turned in a gutsy five innings to get his sixth win of the spring by scattering three runs, three hits and six walks.

The Racers snapped a three-game skid against the Bruins with the win.

Game Notes

Dustin Mercer moved into 5^th in career hits with the Racers with his 2RBI single in the 2^nd inning and he now has 227.
Tyler Lawrence (2014-17) is MSU's all-time leader with 266, Wes Cunningham (2007-10) and Ty Stetson (2011-14) each have 236 and Tyler Pittman (2004-07) has 228 in fourth place.
With a free pass today, Carson Garner has 46 walks in 44 games in 2025 and leads the MVC.
The MSU single season walks record was set in 1973 by Jack Perconte at 58.
With two more walks, Garner could become the fifth Racer to get to 50 walks in a season and be the first since Grant Wood who had 50 in 2018.
The Racers' one-two late inning punch got the job done again to secure MSU's win as Dylan Zentko and Graham Kelham got the final nine outs for the Racers and it was Kelham's fourth save of 2025.
Zentko and Kelham combined for a stat line of: 4IP, 2H, 0R, 0BB, 3K, 1HBP.
Both the Bruins and Racers had trouble with control from the mound today: Belmont walked 10 and hit two batters and the Racers walked six and also hit two batters.
MSU's second baseman, Dom Decker walked today and pushed his on-base streak to 28 games, longest of the season for MSU.
With a win on Saturday, the Racers can win their sixth-straight series in MVC play.
After a 2-4 start to league play, the Racers are 13-3 since.
In his seventh season at Murray State, Skirka is 198-147 overall and 46-30 in The Valley.
With two more wins, Skirka will become the fourth MSU Head Coach to win 200 career games, following Johnny Reagan (776, 1968-93), Rob McDonald (247, 2004-14) and Mike Thieke (231, 1994-03).

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