ST. LOUIS – [BOX SCORE] Missouri Baptist baseball struggled to keep William Carey off the board on Saturday, but had a big offensive output in an 11-8 win over the Crusaders.

Missouri Baptist (3-0) found itself in a slugfest on Saturday and needed one big inning to grab its third win of the year. The team got just that in the seventh. MBU posted five runs in the top of the inning and held-off the Crusaders' bats for the remainder of the game to preserve its unblemished record.

Michael Yarborough got the start for the Spartans and picked-up his first win of the year. The senior allowed three runs on six hits in four innings of work. Overall, the Spartans called upon five relief pitchers in the game, all of which recorded at least one strikeout.

The Spartans were the first to get on the board after the first two batters reached. Jeff Smith drew the leadoff walk and stole second, as a pitch plunked Brent Zimmerman. For Zimmerman, it was the third time in the last two games that a pitch has hit him.

Aaron Pangilinan came to the plate after Eli Roundtree walked and delivered the first runs of the game on a single to right field.

The Spartans kept the game close as William Carey posted two runs in the third and one in the fourth. With a 5-4 game heading to the seventh inning, MBU took advantage of a couple of costly errors by the Crusaders.

Thanks to a throwing error on shortstop Wes Brown, Aaron Collazo advanced to third on a botched fielder's choice to make it first and third with no outs. After adding another walk to his total, Jace Belcher left the game with bases loaded. Alex Buechler, however, did not fare much better. He walked Orlando Olivera to put the first of five runs on the board in the inning.

The Crusaders made things interesting in the eighth. Carl Jameson struggled with command and allowed four runs to cross the plate before getting Michael Wells to fly out to end the inning.

As the ninth inning approached, the Spartans looked to Marcus Crescentini to shut the door once again. The junior allowed one hit and struck out two batters en-route to his second save of the season.

Pangilinan stole the show for Missouri Baptist on Saturday. The junior first baseman went 3-6 with five RBI, a new career-high.

The top of the order for the Spartans was also quite impressive. Jeff Smith, Brent Zimmerman and Orlando Olivera combined to go 5-12 in the game.

Missouri Baptist will head home before traveling back to Mississippi next weekend to play in the Belhaven Invitational.