SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Ross Detweiller limited Bradley to three hits and struck out 10 in his 7.0 innings of work, leading Missouri State (18-12, 3-4) to an 9-3 win against visiting Bradley (13-11, 1-3) in the opening game of their 3-game Missouri Valley Conference series Friday afternoon at Hammons Field.

Detweiller improved to 4-2 by keeping the Braves off the board until senior third baseman Paul Rice homered to right field with out in the sixth inning.  Rice's home run, however, pulled the Braves within 5-1and the Bears promptly broke the game open with three runs in the home half of the sixth.

Bradley senior Michael Christl (1-4) suffered the loss for the Braves, allowing five runs on seven hits in his 5.0 innings of work.  The Bears touched Christl for two runs right away, plating two in the bottom of the first.  Ben Woodbury was hit by a Christl pitch and immediately stole second, then took third while Nolan Keane walked to put runners at the corners with no outs.  Ryan Mantle brought the game's first run home with a sacrifice fly, also advancing Keane to second.  After Ben Carlson struck out looking, Kyle Paul came through with a 2-out, run-scoring double.

Christl allowed only one more base runner until the Bears broke through again for two more runs in the fourth.  Missouri State loaded the bases on a hit, a fielder's choice that did not produce an out and a walk.  Tann Matson drove home one run with a short sacrifice fly and Woodbury followed with an RBI single for a 4-0 Bears lead.  Paul added an RBI single in the fifth for the 5-run cushion.

Freshman Ramie Hamdan took over for Christl to start the sixth for Missouri State and his four wild pitches, as well as a walk and a hit batter, led the the 3-run outburst.  Two of the runs in the inning scored as the result of wild pitches and the third came home on a throwing error by catcher Ryan Eigsti, his first error of the year.

Bradley tried to put together a similar rally in the eighth against Missouri State reliever Pat Doyle.  Justin Carr, Rice and Dan Brewer drew consecutive one-out walks to load the bases.  Carr scored on a wild pitch and Rice came home on a Ryan Curry ground out to pull within 8-3.

The Bears got one of the runs back in the bottom of the eighth, thanks to Nolan Keane's sixth home run of the year.

Curry was the only Brave to put up multiple hits, going 2-for-4 to improve his road batting average this season to .474 (.36-76).  In addition to Rice's home run, pinch-hitter Pat Ryerson's ninth-inning single was the only other hit for the Braves.

Pinch-hitter Jason Acevedo drew a fourth walk from Doyle after Ryerson's single to put runners at first and second to start the ninth, but Colby Luttrell lined out and John Lequia grounded into a double play to end the game.

The teams will resume the series with single games Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m., both at Hammons Field.