The No. 13 UK baseball team (29-15, 10-11 conf.) won the season series against the Missouri Tigers (29-15, 9-12 conf.) on Sunday with a 11-10 victory.

Kentucky’s Justin Lewis (7-2 record, 4.03 ERA) got the start Sunday afternoon as he faced Missouri left-handed pitcher Tyler LaPlante (4-2 record, 2.08 ERA).

Missouri struck first with an RBI single from Brett Bond to give Missouri the 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. This lead wouldn’t last long for the Tigers, however. 

Kentucky’s Tristan Pompey scored on an RBI single from Kole Cottam in the bottom of the first inning. Immediately following the RBI was a three-run homer from Luke Heyer to clear the bases for the Cats with no outs in the bottom of the first. The homer by Luke Heyer tied him for the SEC lead with 16 on the year. It is also the most home runs in a season by a Cat since National Player of the Year AJ Reed hit 23 in 2014.

Coltyn Kessler would come around to score after being walked to give the Cats a 5-1 lead in the bottom half of the second inning. Trey Dawson would score after being walked in the bottom of the fourth inning on a fielder’s choice RBI by Pompey, giving the Cats a 6-1 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning.

From there, the Tigers took the game back over. They scored nine unanswered runs to make the score 10-6.

Missouri’s late game runs wouldn’t be enough as Kentucky rallied back late in the eighth inning. Ryan Shinn led off the inning with a solo homerun. Kole Cottam gave Kentucky the 11-10 lead with a grand slam with one out in the bottom half of the eighth inning.

“It was great. The first pitch was a slider low and I figured he’d come back with a fastball and he did,” Cottam said of his grand slam that won the game for the Cats. 

“This is a team that has the ability to come back over and over again,” said UK head coach Nick Mingione.

All nine of UK’s starters reached first base in the game. Lewis tallied 10 strikeouts on five runs on seven hits and three walks through 5.1 innings and 105 pitches. First baseman Cottam had quite a day, going 3-for-4 at the plate with five RBIs and a grand slam.

For Missouri, Brian Sharp and Trey Harris had a day at the plate. Both tallied a homerun and combined for seven of the 10 teams runs batted in.

The Cats will open the series against the Tennessee Volunteers on Friday, May 4, in Knoxville at 6:30 p.m.