Cook Allows Only Six Hits; Cox Homers

(Columbia Daily Tribune, Thursday, June 17, 1954)

OMAHA, June 17 - The University of Missouri won the NCAA college baseball world series championship last night by beating Rollins college, 4 to 1, behind the six-hit pitching of sophomore lefthander, Ed Cook.
The Tigers also got six hits off a pair of Rollins lefthanders, Bill Cary and Art Brophy, but one of those blows was a long home run into the left field stands by Buddy Cox, Missouri's smooth-fielding second baseman, that proved to be the decisive run.
The win was Cook's second of the series and reversed a 4-1 decision that Rollins won over Missouri in the second round of the double elimination tournament.
All of the hits off the Missourian came in the first five innings. He struck out eight and walked only one.
Brophy, on the other hand, gave up three passes in the six innings he worked and two of them led to insurance runs for the Tigers.
Cary was a surprise starter on the mound for the Tars, but he gave way to Brophy as a pinch hitter in the third inning after the Tigers had jumped off to a two-run lead.
Missouri scored in the first frame when Todd Sickel, third baseman, beat out a bunt, went to second when an attempted double play failed and rode home on Jerry Schoonmaker's slashing single to left.
Cox slammed his homer over the 72-foot mark in the next inning, and while Cary stayed around till the end of the frame, Brophy showed up as a pinch hitter in the Tars' third.
Brophy, who had beaten the Missourians in the earlier game, lined a double down the first base line, but to no avail as Cook retired the side.
The double and Cox' homer were the only extra-base blows in the contest.
Rollins, the smallest school to reach the tourney, got its lone run in the fourth when Bob Machardy, first baseman, singled, moved to second on a passed ball and scored on a single by Shortstop Nick Vancho.
The Tigers got that counter back in the bottom half of the inning as Bob Schoonmaker, first baseman, and Cox walked and Emil Kammer looped a single into left field scoring Schoonmaker.
Kammer, a pitcher, plays left field for Missouri when he's not on the mound.
Sickel, who beat out two bunts for hits, walked to open the Missouri fifth as the Tigers tallied their final marker. He was sacrificed to second by Bob Musgrave, right fielder, and brought home on a single by Catcher George Gleason.
The Tars failed to threaten in the last three innings as Cook set them down in order.