The Billikens baseball team is on a three game winning streak coming off a doubleheader against Xavier and defeated nationally ranked Missouri State on Wednesday, 1-0. The team is now 25-11 overall, (7-5 in the Atlantic 10).

“We struggled in on Friday, but after the game was rained out Saturday, we bounced back Sunday to get the double header against Xavier,” senior pitcher Jerry Mancuso said.

The game on Friday was off to a slow start, until Xavier came on the scoreboard in the 7th inning. Junior RHP Alex Alemann went for 8 innings, allowing three hits, four walks and only one run. Senior RHP Travis Parker was brought in for the bottom of the ninth and excelled. He shut down the Musketeers in the ninth, 10th, and 11th innings.

However, the Billikens had two errors in the bottom of the 12th that allowed 2 runs in for Xavier, and cost the Billikens the game in a heartbreaking loss of 2-3.

In the first game of a doubleheader, the Billikens bounced back quickly in the first. Junior Alex Kelly began the rally when he hit a two-out single. Junior Steve Fernandez, hit his second homerun of the season and drove in Kelly giving SLU a 2-0 lead.They didn’t turn back from there, going on to win the game 8-2.

The third game seemed repetitive of the first, with a scoreless game through the eighth inning due to a pitching battle. Saint Louis’ Damian Rivera shined only allowing five hits for six innings and having three strikeouts.

The Billikens came back to St. Louis to pick up their 25th win of the season over Missouri State this Tuesday with a final score of 1-0. Saint Louis’ freshman RHP Nick Bates threw for five innings with four strikeouts and allowed only one hit and two walks.

“We need to improve our conference record, this week’s series against UMass is going to huge in terms of helping our conference record,” DiRoma said.

The Billikens play next this weekend against Massachusetts, and Atlantic 10 rival. Game one of the series is scheduled for Friday, April 20 at 4 p.m.