With severe weather threatening the Memphis area on Saturday, the Memphis Tigers opened the highly anticipated 2025 season against SEMO with a doubleheader at FedEx Park on Friday afternoon.

Coming into the season opener with SEMO, the energy around the Memphis Baseball program was unlike anything the program had seen before. Despite what the folks at D1Baseball said about the Tigers altering picking them 7th in the preseason AAC poll, Coach Riser knew his team and knew the Tigers would take the field with a lot of talent that could bring the program back to competing for an NCAA Tournament Regional. First up, a three-game set with a solid program in SEMO that went into Baum Walker Stadium last year and shocked the Arkansas Razorbacks, eliminating them from their own Regional.

Behind an impressive pitching outing from the three-headed monster of Seth Garner, Davis Oswalt, and Seth Cox, the Tigers took game one 4-1 over SEMO. In his season debut, starting pitcher, Seth Garner gave the Tigers 4.1 innings of really good pitching. Garner finished the day giving up seven hits, no runs, and one strikeout. Davis Oswalt gave the Tigers 2.1 innings of two hit baseball. Oswalt finished his day with a strikeout and no earned runs. Seth Cox would come in to earn the save giving the Tigers two solid innings, giving up a run, two strikeouts, on two hits.

In game one, Cade Tucker, Cy Turner, and Shane Cox gave the Tigers three solo home runs, with an additional run coming in the bottom half of the 5th inning when Creek Robertson scored on an SEMO error.

As the second game rolled around, the visitors from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, put together back-to-back scoring innings in the 2nd and third innings to give SEMO a 6-0 lead over the Tigers. With a six-run cushion, SEMO relied heavily on their pitching to bring it home for the Redhawks. The starting pitcher for SEMO, Sam Heyman, gave the Redhawks six innings of shutout baseball, striking out eight while giving up just two hits.

SEMO would have a 7th run in the top half of the 8th before allowing two from Memphis to be at the bottom of the 8th and another run at the bottom of the ninth to reach a final score of 7-3 in favor of SEMO.

Although Coach Riser and his staff wanted to win both games on Friday, a split isn’t bad against an NCAA Regional opponent. Memphis showed today that they belonged in the same field as a program that is among the powers at the mid-major ranks. A win on Monday and the outlook on the season could drastically shift to reaching an NCAA Regional and having success in the postseason. Memphis has the pieces on the roster to make the 2025 season memorable in year two of the Coach Riser era in Memphis.

With bad weather forecast for Memphis on Saturday and Sunday, the series-deciding game will be played on Monday at FedEx Park. The first pitch is slated for 2:05.

Final Memphis box score from the 7-3 loss

Photo Credits – Memphis Baseball on X