Missouri State University’s baseball team is set to face Oklahoma State in a midweek game at O’Brate Stadium in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on March 3. The matchup is scheduled for 4 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN+ and local radio stations KBFL 96.9FM/1060 AM.
The Bears, holding a 7-4 record this season, are preparing for their fourth of ten games against Power Four conference opponents. Their opponent, Oklahoma State, enters the contest with an 8-3 record.
Missouri State has shown consistent power at the plate, hitting home runs in all eleven games this season and ranking eighth nationally with 442 home runs since the start of the 2022 season. Under head coach Joey Hawkins’ tenure as hitting coach, the Bears have continued to excel offensively. Last year’s total of 109 home runs was the fourth highest in school history. This season, Missouri State ranks second in Conference USA and twenty-first nationally with twenty homers so far.
TruMedia statistics indicate that Missouri State hitters rank third nationally in hard hit percentage—53.2 percent of batted balls reach at least 95 mph—and tenth nationally in average exit velocity at 91.2 mph per batted ball. Among non-Power Four schools, they are rated highest in both categories.
Junior Caden Bogenpohl stands out with eighteen walks this season—second most nationwide—and his career total of 126 walks places him fourth in program history, trailing Bill Mueller’s record by twenty-eight walks. Bogenpohl also shares fifteenth place at Missouri State for career home runs with thirty-five.
Senior Taeg Gollert is approaching two program records: he currently has sixty-two doubles (five shy of Brayden Drake’s school mark) and ninety extra-base hits (twenty-six behind Jason Hart’s record).
This year’s roster features eighteen newcomers from diverse backgrounds; eleven transferred from four-year colleges, two played junior college baseball last year, and five are freshmen.
On the mound last season, Missouri State averaged 9.51 strikeouts per nine innings—their best rate since 1969—and ranked thirty-second nationally in that category. Tyler Charlton set a school record with an average of 12.87 strikeouts per nine innings after striking out eighty-two batters over fifty-seven-and-a-third innings pitched; Max Knight recorded fifty-eight strikeouts over forty-seven-and-two-thirds innings; Michael Yusypchuk struck out sixty-three batters across seventy-one innings as a freshman starter on Friday nights.
So far this season, Missouri State averages just over nine strikeouts per nine innings pitched; Charlton ranks fourth among Conference USA pitchers for fewest hits allowed per nine innings (4.09) and second for WHIP (0.73), while Knight has tallied thirteen strikeouts over nine innings pitched.
Max Knight and Curry Sutherland lead as two-way players this year—Knight was named an NCBWA All-American last season as the only player nationwide to log at least forty-five pitching innings along with forty-five RBIs and fifty-five pitching strikeouts; Sutherland contributed both as a regular third baseman and pitcher last year with seventeen innings thrown and twenty-one strikeouts paired with a 2.65 ERA.
The Bears begin their first campaign as members of Conference USA after thirty-five years competing in the Missouri Valley Conference where they achieved seven regular-season championships and five tournament titles between 1991 and 2025.
