Southeast baseball blows by Missouri, backed by Cannon blast and sharp offense

Southeast’s Chance Resetich (left) jogs across home plate as teammate Bryce Cannon (right) meets him during a February 26, 2024 game between the Missouri Tigers and the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks at Taylor Stadium in Columbia, Mo. Southeast defeated Missouri, 8-3.

Cole Lee ~ clee@semoball.com

Entering Taylor Stadium four games below even on the season, expectations seemed to be tempered for Southeast’s Tuesday matchup at Missouri – until they weren’t.

With the Tigers supposedly running a scheduled “bullpen day,” the Redhawks took stark advantage and jumped out to an early lead, winning 8-3.

With a two-run lead going into the fifth, Bryce Cannon made sure that Southeast had what it needed to ice the game, smashing a 0-2 count to right-center field for a grand slam to go up eight.

In what’s been a phenomenal start to the season for a handful of Southeast’s junior college transfers, Cannon put the exclamation point on an exceptional performance for the Redhawks.

After batting .321 a season ago at Santa Rosa Junior College, he’s carried that heavy average to Southeast Missouri State quite nicely.

Now batting a cool .300 on the season having played in eight of Southeast’s first nine games, Cannon has proved to be a loud and heavy addition to the Redhawks’ lineup here early.

Reaching base twice, both on hits, Cannon iced a huge victory against a tough foe for Southeast on Tuesday night with his 4-RBI bomb in the fifth.

Against a Southeastern Conference foe, widely considered to be the top league in all of college baseball, those Redhawks never showed to be a lick worse than the Tigers.

Emerging from a scoreless first inning, Chance Resetich blasted a solo shot to give Southeast its first lead of the game and the Redhawks doubled down with an RBI double play in the third.

Southeast drew 11 combined walks and hit-by-pitches on Tuesday, displaying pure discipline against a talented cast of Tiger arms.

Walking in two runs in the fifth before Cannon unloaded on his payoff pitch, Southeast has evidently found something that’s clicked at the plate early this season.

Averaging 5.56 runs per game at the dish, SEMO’s loud bats have kept it in games but not enough to keep afloat against a strong early schedule.

What’s different about the Redhawks

Much of the talk among the players this season has been about they have been benefitting from a change in mental approach. Sawyers said this past weekend that the Redhawks were “front runners” last year and hasn’t seen that so far this year.

“We felt like we probably weren't as resilient as we should have been a year ago,” Sawyers said. “You have a hard time coming from behind and when things aren't going your way and I thought we were a little bit front runners last year. We were pretty talented, but if things didn't go our way, we didn't always respond. And so that's certainly something has been talked about and stressed and we tried to make our offseason kind of as tough and challenging as it could, try to breed that resilience. If they think they’re grittier, the credit goes to them because they're the ones who got to do it.”

SEMO has also been boosting some power bats throughout the lineup. After the firework show at Columbia, the Redhawks lead the OVC with 14 home runs.

However, the Redhawks are also middle of the pack in runs scored and have the second lowest batting average. SEMO outhit Mizzou 7-6 with three of them going deep.

Sawyers also stressed that after the weekend series against St. Thomas on Sunday and is looking for more consistency as the season goes on.

“That's a feast or famine way to approach offense and we really encourage them in simple terms, we need to like go for the kill shot less often and go for base hits more,” Sawyers said.

Up next

With another opportunity to prove their mettle, the Redhawks pick back up with a weekend series against Toledo (3-4), beginning on Friday.

Playing four against the Rockets with a Saturday doubleheader and single-game fixtures on Friday and Sunday, Southeast could theoretically escape the weekend north of .500 on the year.

If it can keep the fire it built against the Tigers, that theory could hold some plausibility as the Redhawks’ red-hot offense welcomes Toledo to Cape Girardeau.