Middle Tennessee baseball (12-8) dropped a midweek matchup against Southeast Missouri (12-9) on Tuesday night, 11-7. 

Right-hander Logan Bingham made his first collegiate start for the Blue Raiders and lasted only one inning. The Redhawks’ offense got to the true freshman early, pushing four runs across with two outs in the top of the first. Cole Warehime, Ty Stauss and Carson Schrack all picked up RBIs in the inning, while Warehime scored on a double steal. 

“He’s been throwing the ball well,” MTSU head coach Jerry Meyers said. “We wanted to throw him because we feel like he’s a guy that can emerge and can contribute for us. [We] wanted to put him out there first too, so we had some guys that did have experience to follow up behind him.” 

The bottom half of the inning started just as poorly for MTSU, as left fielder Keaton Ray was called out on what was thought to be a double down the right field line. However, an appeal ruled that Ray missed first base and was out. 

SEMO added a fifth run in the second inning against Bryant Beranek, as a Micheal Mugan single to the left side drove one run in. 

The Redhawk offense continued to do damage, loading the bases against Beranek in the fourth. Left-hander Cole Torbett entered on the mound and allowed a single to Bryce Cannon that drove two runners in pushing it to 7-0. 

Starting pitcher Caden Kickhaefer dominated for SEMO. Across five innings, the righty completely shut down the Blue Raider bats as he allowed only three base runners while striking out six.

“The kid had an outlier pitch that we knew about,” Meyers said. “He pounded the zone with that change-up that he had that was such a good pitch.” 

As soon as Kickhaefer left the game, the MTSU bats caught fire. Tyler Minnick sent one off the batter’s eye in center field and Brett Vondohlen sent one out to left to go back-to-back against Kayden Kohlberg to bring it to 7-2. Clay Badylak picked up an RBI on a bases-loaded walk, and Eston Snider kept it going with an infield single to short, bringing Middle Tennessee within three. 

SEMO got two runs back in the top of the seventh courtesy of a Shea McGahan two-run home run to left against Ethan Imbimbo.  

MTSU closed back in on SEMO in the eighth, after a pinch-hit three-run home run from Kenny McKinley. Matt Wolfe led off the bottom of the eighth with a walk, followed by a Hayden Miller single.  

SEMO brought in lefty Ethan Osborne from the bullpen, leading to a pinch-hit opportunity for the right-handed McKinley. The outfielder’s third home run of the year brought the score to 9-7. 

“They were telling me for a couple innings to be ready,” McKinley said. “[At] 0-1 I was real late on the fastball, so I knew he [Osborne] was going to throw it again, so when I knew he threw it again I was on time for it.” 

SEMO added some insurance runs in the top of the ninth against Matthew Driver, as Mugan and Cannon found back-to-back solo home runs pushing it to 11-7. 

Eddie White earned the save for the Redhawks, with a scoreless 1.2 IP to finish the night, allowing two hits across the eighth and ninth innings. 

MTSU hits the road for only the second time this season, as takes on No. 15 Dallas Baptist in the first Conference USA series of the year.