UAM senior pitcher and Monticello native, Mason Philley has broken an almost 50-year old record after striking out 15 Oklahoma Baptist batters to overtake David Stover to become the career strikeout leader at UAM.
Stover, a UAM Sports Hall of Fame Inductee in 2014, pitched for the Weevils from 1971 through 1974 setting the career strikeout record with 285 strike outs.
Stover also holds the record for career earned run average at 2.26 and had a sub 2.00 earned run average in two consecutive seasons with a 1.96 average in 1973 and 1.97 in 1974.
Entering into the weekend series against Oklahoma Baptist, Philley was sitting at 280 strike outs and was scheduled to start for the Weevils in game one of Saturday’s double-header.
The Weevils would win the opening contest of the series on Friday night with an 11-7 victory with Connor Irvine picking up his fifth win of the season to improve to 5-2.
Philley would need five strikeouts to tie the record and six to break the record in his start on Saturday.
In the bottom of the first inning, Philley would get the first strikeout of the day to end the inning.
The Weevils would give Philley a reason to relax on the mound in the top of the second inning as the Weevil offense would give Philley a 7-0 lead.
Philley added two more strikeouts in the bottom of the second inning to bring his total to 283 for his career.
Philley would get one strike out away from tying the record in the bottom of the third inning with number 284.
Number 285 to tie the record would come against the first batter Philley faced in the bottom of the fourth inning, striking out Alex Schroeder to begin the inning.
After a single and the next batter being hit by a pitch, Philley would strike out Troy Shields to set the career strikeout mark at 286.
Philley would throw for 8.2 innings and would strike out 15 batters in the contest to finish the game with 295 strike outs.
Philley was credited with the win allowing four runs on eight hits and walking one batter.
With the win, Philley improved his record to 5-3 on the season.
The Weevils would add two more runs in the contest at the top of the fifth inning to defeat the Bison 9-4 to take the series win.
Oklahoma Baptist would take game two of the double-header on Saturday with a 3-1 win.
The Bison would get a one-run lead in the top of the second inning on a home run with Kirk Woolf tying the contest in the top of the third inning after hitting a double to score Grant Jeffers.
Oklahoma Baptist would score two more runs in the contest, scoring a run in the bottom of the fourth inning and a final run in the bottom of the sixth inning to take the 3-1 win.
Derek Potts would pitch the complete game for the Weevils, dropping his record to 2-2 on the season.
DeShaun Cordova, Grant Jeffers, Dorrance Parker, Cade Cancilla, and Kirk Woolf recorded hits in the contest with Woolf leading the team with two hits.
The highlight of the series was the record breaking day for Philley that gave him another notch in his career that should solidify him as a Hall of Fame player for the Weevils.
In Philley’s career at UAM, a career that began in 2019, the left handed pitcher would set his career best strikeout game with 15 strikeouts on 3-26-2021 in a win against East Central University.
At the time it was the most strikeouts by any pitcher against a league opponent. The performance would give Philley a Great American Conference Player of the Week honors.
Fast forward one year later, Philley would become the first Weevils in history to pitch a perfect game, once agains against East Central. The accomplishment would earn Philley Player of the Week honors from the GAC and Player of the Week honors from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.
Philley would also earn All-GAC Honorable Mention honors in 2022 as well.
After setting the career strikeout record, matching his career high of 15 strikeouts, it has been announced that Philley has earned GAC Player of the Week honors for the third time in his career.
The Weevils are currently 15-11 overall with an 8-7 record in the GAC and are listed in the fifth position in the conference standings.
The Weevils will return home for a weekend series beginning Friday against SNU at 2 pm.
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