KIRKSVILLE, MO. – Stellar pitching coupled with clutch hitting lifted the University of Sioux Falls Baseball Team (2-0) to a doubleheader sweep against Truman State (0-6) on Friday afternoon.

The Cougars and Bulldogs will play another doubleheader on Saturday, beginning at noon, also in Kirksville, Mo.

Today, it was all about strong starting pitching and consistent hitting, noted USF Head Coach Grant Hieb. "This was a great start to our season. We had a couple of solid starts with Matt Graham going the distance for us," said Hieb. "I can't say enough about their efforts on the mound. It is huge for our ball club to have our starters working deep into games. Then, our offense did a great job of jumping on them early in game one and keeping the pressure on all game. The second game took us a while to get going but I thought we did a good job of making adjustments. We had some great at-bats against their bullpen and we were able to put up some runs," he said.

On the day, USF played 16 innings and the starters worked 14 and allowed just five earned runs or about 2.5 per game.

At the plate, Grant Lung, who was earlier this year named by the NSIC as the USF "Player to Watch," started the season with four hits in eight at bats and produced a home run along with a team-high four RBI. With two hits and two RBIs in both games, he now has 29 career multi-hit games and 15 multi-RBI games. Trey Hubers also had a big day with five hits in seven at bats and had three extra base hits to go with a stolen base and an RBI. With three hits in game two, he now has three career games of three hits. Senior Ryan Bernardy had three hits in the first game.

Sioux Falls 6 Truman State 5 (7 innings)
With solid pitching from Alex Krout and Payton Livingston plus three hits from Bernardy and two by three other players, USF successfully opened the season with a 6-5 road win over Truman State in game one of the doubleheader.

Krout (1-0) earned his first win of the season and third at USF by throwing five innings and recording a career-high seven strikeouts. In five innings, he threw 67 pitches while allowing two runs and four hits. Payton Livingston earned the save by working two innings and allowing three hits and two earned runs with three strikeouts.

At the plate, Bernardy had three hits in four at bats. He hit a triple and had an RBI. Lung had two hits in four trips to the play with two RBI. In his first career game, designated hitter Tyler Cate had two hits and two RBI while Hubers also had a pair of hits. USF collected six runs on 11 hits and made two errors. Connor McKenna took the loss for TSU as he allowed six runs in six innings with seven strikeouts.
USF struck first and in their opening at bat of the season. After Connor King walked and Jared Binsfield was hit by a pitch, Lung delivered with a two-run double to left field. Staked to the lead, Krout went to work and struck out five of the first six hitters he faced.

In the top of the fourth inning, USF put together five hits and added to its lead when Cate had his first hit of his career, a two-out, two-run single which plated both Tyler Blackburn and Zane Butts, who had reached on hits. Two of TSU's runs were by home runs by Holden Missey. TSU closed to within a run in the seventh inning but Livingston worked through it and earned the save.

 G2 – USF 6 Truman State 2 (nine innings)
Led by a complete game from junior right-hander Matt Graham and clutch hitting from Hubers (three hits) and Lung, USF completed the 6-2 come-from-behind win and a sweep against Truman State.

Graham (1-0) allowed just six hits and two earned runs in throwing the complete game. He had seven strikeouts and three walks on the day. USF was led offensively by Trey Hubers, who had a career-best three hits with a run scored, RBI and stolen base. Grant Lung added two more hits, including his first home run of the season while scoring two and knocking in two. In the game, USF had nine hits and six runs, which all came from innings 6-9 as the Cougars rallied for the victory.

In the early parts of the game, it was a pitcher duel with TSU scoring a pair of runs in the fourth inning, including Holden Missey's third home run of the day as the Bulldogs led, 2-0. Then, Lung hit his first home run of the season to cut the deficit to 2-1 in the sixth inning.

IN the seventh inning, Cate had a run-scoring single and plated Hubers, who tripled to lead off the 7th inning. After Lung walked and Bernardy was hit by a pitch Sam Michels had an RBI single to score Lung. Hubers singled through the right side to bring home Bernardy. To top it off, Hubers and Michels pulled off a double-steal as USF took a 5-2 lead in the eighth inning. Then, the Cougars added a run in the ninth inning which added insurance for Graham finished his first career complete game and earned his first win of the year and five of his career.