Things could have been a whole lot better for the Miner baseball team Wednesday afternoon if they didn't have to play the seventh inning.

Unfortunately for UMR, the seventh was the fateful inning in both games as the Miners dropped both ends of a Great Lakes Valley Conference doubleheader to Missouri-St. Louis at the UMR Baseball Field. The Rivermen scored four runs in the top of the seventh to win the opener 6-2, then rallied from a seven-run deficit with a 10-run seventh frame in an 11-8 game two victory.

In the first contest, the Rivermen scored single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to take a 2-0 lead, but the Miners put together a rally to draw even in the bottom half of the sixth. Gerad Fox opened the inning with a double down the line and scored on a two-out hit by Eaf Redden to cut the lead in half. Moments later, Nick Zurweller singled past short to tie the game.

Joe Montgomery followed with a hit, but UMSL reliever Linds Prestia entered the game and got the Rivermen out of the jam.

The Rivermen got to UMR pitcher Brian Rickert in the seventh, taking the lead on Matt Ayers' two-run triple and adding two more runs before the inning ended.

UMR had seven hits in the opener, with Fox and Montgomery getting two hits each.

Game two started out well for the Miners, as they scored in the opening inning and then knocked out UMSL starter Justin Laramie in the second when they scored four times.

Fox opened the Miner first by getting hit by a pitch, then stole second and reached third on a throwing error. With one out, Zurweller hammered a double into the left field corner to give UMR the lead.

UMR loaded the bases to open the second, then Josh Hanrahan singled home Cody Bass to extend the lead to 2-0. A wild pitch scored Brandon Cogan, which was followed by a two-run single by Redden that made it 5-0.

An RBI single by Fox in the third pushed the UMR lead to six before UMSL got on the board with an infield groundout in the fourth, but the Miners got single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to take an 8-1 lead into the seventh.

Cogan scored the seventh Miner run on a passed ball, then an RBI triple by Bass in the sixth brought home Zurweller.

UMR starter Ben Sherman, who was making his first start of the season, held the RIvermen to four hits over the first six innings. However, the Miner bullpen was unable to hold onto the large advantage as UMSL sent 13 batters to the plate in the seventh.

The big blow in the inning was a bases-clearing double by Cole Williams off Rickert, who had entered the game after both Andrew Page and Andy Draper had failed to retire any of the first eight hitters of the inning. Williams' hit gave UMSL a 10-8 lead. The Rivermen (7-1, 4-1 GLVC) got their 10 runs in the inning on just six hits, as three UMR errors and a pair of walks were part of the equation as well.

The Miners had 12 hits in game two. Kris Hamilton had three of the hits, while Fox, Zurweller and Redden had two hits each.

UMR (8-7, 1-4 GLVC) will host SIU Edwardsville in a three-game series this weekend at the UMR Baseball Field, with a noon doubleheader scheduled for Saturday and a single game on Sunday at noon.