Bradley 8, at Wichita State 4

WICHITA, KS - Bradley shortstop Tyler Leffler broke a 4-4 tie with a 3-run home run in the top of the ninth inning, leading the Braves to a breakthrough win Saturday, an 8-4 victory at Wichita State that snapped a 33-game road losing streak to the Shockers.

Bradley (17-14, 3-4 MVC) had not beaten Wichita State (14-25, 4-4 MVC) at Eck Stadium since May 17, 1996. Ironically, history repeated itself a bit for Braves freshman CF Andy Shadid in the streak-breaking win. After hitting a home run and earning the No. 4 play on ESPN SportsCenter Top Plays for a spectacular, diving catch Friday night, Shadid followed Leffler's blast with a scoreboard shot of his own to cap the scoring in the ninth inning and made another diving catch in the left centerfield gap in the seventh inning that has been nominated for Top Plays (1:54.10 into the game replay).

Bradley led on three different occassions Saturday, only to see Wichita State rally, before finally putting the game away in the ninth. Luke Mangieri drove home the game's first run with a RBI single in the third, but Wichita State came right back with two runs in the home half of the third.

Benefitting from a Wichita State error, a walk and a hit-by-pitch to load the bases, Bradley reclaimed the lead, 3-2, in the fifth on Paul Solka's 2-out, 2-run single. The Shockers pulled even, 3-3, in the sixth on a sacrifice fly, their final run against Bradley starting pitcher Cameron Roegner.

The Braves once again moved ahead in the eighth when Evan Gruener led off with a double and scored on Ian Kristan's 1-out single only to see Wichita State answer in the home half of the eighth on Gunnar Troutwine's leadoff double against closer Alan Beer.

Bradley's ninth-inning rally started when Mangieri drew a leadoff walk. Spencer Gaa followed with a fielder's choice, sacrifice bunt that did not result in an out. Leffler fouled off the first two pitches he saw, before launching his go-ahead blast to left field. The 3-run game-winner was Leffler's first home run of the season. Two outs later, Shadid drove a shot off the scoreboard in left centerfield for his team-leading fifth home run of the year.

Beer (W, 2-0) ended up earning the win by recovering from the home run and a double in the eighth with three straight strikeouts, then working around a ninth inning single. Leffler was 2-for-3, Gruener was 2-for-5 with two doubles and Shadid finished 2-for-4 with a walk to pace Bradley's 10-hit attack.

The teams will play the rubber game in their 3-game weekend series Sunday. The 1 p.m. game will be televised on Cox 2022 in Kansas and ESPN3 outside Kansas.