Missouri 5, South Dakota 4

In the closest contest of the day, Missouri used one run at a time to inch past South Dakota.

Chase Dry reached on a walk and stole second before Rodney Cravens' one-out single allowed him to slide across the plate for the winning run, breaking a 4-4 tie, in the bottom of the seventh.

Aaron Spencer had tied the game in the sixth inning when his single scored Tom Spencer, and then Aaron Spencer struck out two South Dakota batters four outs number one and three in the top of the seventh to set up the winning run.

"We were a bit nervous in this first game. Aaron didn't have his stuff today, but he battled hard, he got fired up (in the last inning)," said Missouri coach Billy Williams.

"We're a good hitting team, I kept thinking we'd turn it loose, but they made some big plays and took us down a notch. I think we'll come to life after this, we'll be a different team on Monday."

Missouri had jumped out to a 3-0 lead with one run in each of the first three innings. Dry singled in a run in the first, an error allowed the second run to score and Brandon Calhoun singled in the third run.

Aaron Spencer had cruised through the first three innings with five strike outs, but struggled with control in the fourth inning.

South Dakota's Matt Wiederrich took advantage of a lead-off walk to score as Justin Jorgenson singled him in and then Jorgenson scored on a wild pitch to cut the lead to 3-2. Eric Bailey hit a sacrifice fly to tie the score in the fifth, and the Roadrunners took the 4-3 lead in the sixth when Bret Bachtell singled to score Tom Flyger.

South Dakota 000 211 0 - 4 4 1

Missouri     111 001 1  -5 9 3