Cowboys Shut Out Bears Behind Campbell's 12 K's
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Oklahoma State continued its winning ways Tuesday at Hammons Field as the 11th-ranked Cowboys defeated Missouri State, 7-0. OSU is now 7-0 on the season, tying for its best-ever start to a season under head coach Josh Holliday. The Cowboys also won their first seven games to open 2014, Holliday’s second season at the helm.
The Pokes have now won 12-straight games dating back to 2020 when OSU was victorious in its final five games before the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tuesday’s win marked OSU’s second consecutive shutout and was also the second-straight game the Cowboys have tallied three home runs.
“We still are getting too many strikes outs in the lower part of the line-up from five to nine, but Christian (Encanarcion-Strand) got us started and we had the three home runs,” said head coach Josh Holliday. “you get good pitching like we did and three home runs and you have a chance.”
Justin Campbell was brilliant on the mound to earn his first win of the season. The right-hander struck out a career-high 12 in six innings of work while allowing only two hits and one walk.
“Justin Campbell got on the bus and came up here and got off today at the ballpark and he was the best player on the field,” Holliday said. “There is no other way to put it. He was the best player and he took a good line-up of hitters and was dominant.”
OSU pitchers finished with 18 punchouts on the day, and the Bears managed just three hits.
Offensively, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Nolan McLean and Jake Thompson all went deep for OSU, which had 10 hits in the contest.
The Cowboys jumped out to a lead in the third inning. With a pair of runners in scoring position, Thompson brought home OSU’s first run with a sacrifice fly to center field.
Up next, Encarnacion-Strand continued his power surge as he smashed his team-leading third home run of the season, a two-run shot to left-center field to put the Pokes up 3-0.
OSU used the long ball to extend its lead again in the fifth. This time it was McLean who delivered a homer for the second-straight game, this one a solo blast laced down the left-field line and over the wall to give the visitors a 4-0 lead.
The Cowboys added their fifth run in the seventh on an RBI by Max Hewitt and punctuated the win in the ninth on Thompson’s two-run homer to right field. Thompson finished 3-for-4 at the plate with three RBIs.
OSU returns home to face Grand Canyon in a three-game weekend series beginning Friday at 4 p.m. at O’Brate Stadium