Cowboy Baseball Completes Comeback To Advance In Stillwater Regional

Oklahoma State overcame a 12-run deficit and advanced to the NCAA Stillwater Regional final with a 29-15 win over Missouri State Sunday at O'Brate Stadium.

The win moved the No. 7 national seed Cowboys to 41-21 and into the Regional final against Arkansas.

OSU's 29 runs were its most ever in an NCAA tournament game, surpassing the 23 the Cowboys scored against Appalachian State in the 1986 Midwest Regional in Stillwater. The 44 combined runs in the game set an NCAA Tournament record.

The Pokes tallied 26 hits in the contest, with six different players collecting at least three hits. Ten of OSU's hits went for extra bases, seven for doubles and three for home runs, and the Cowboys also walked 17 times.

Roc Riggio led the way with a 5-for-7, seven-RBI day, and Griffin Doersching was 3-for-7 with six RBIs. Marcus Brown also had five hits and drove in three runs for the Cowboys.

OSU also got a huge relief effort from Trevor Martin, who came out of the bullpen and worked the final 6 2/3 innings to improve to 4-3.

Martin tied the OSU single-game record for strikeouts with 16, equaling the mark set by Derek Brandow in a 1992 game against Iowa State. The right-hander allowed three runs on four hits and walked just one.

The Cowboys trailed 12-0 after three innings but began to mount their comeback in the fourth as they rallied for six runs on five hits, with six different players collecting RBIs.

Trailing 14-10 after five, OSU took a lead it never relinquished with a seven-run sixth inning. The big blow in the inning came on a Doersching grand slam that put the Pokes on top, 17-14.

MSU (31-29) would score just once more on a solo home run in the seventh, while the Pokes put the game away by plating 12 runs over the final two innings.