Inaugural Kansas City-area All-Star baseball game ends in a tie

Missouri, Kansas teams fail to break deadlock with home run derby following the seventh inning.

By Cody Thorn 

PARKVILLE — Caleb Briggs came up big in his final at-bat for the Missouri All-Stars in the first-ever Metro Sports Kansas City All-Star Game held Tuesday night at Creekside Baseball Park.

The recent St. Michael the Archangel Catholic High School graduate hit a sac fly that scored Lee’s Summit’s Nick Beach for the tying run in the bottom of the seventh inning.

However, Kansas got the next out and the game ended with an 11-11 tie.

An impromptu home run derby followed, but neither Missouri nor Kansas hit one out of Field 4, meaning the game was declared a tie for the second time in a matter of minutes.

Briggs went 2-for-2 with a double, infield single and the sac fly that plated the third run of the seventh inning to cap a rally.

“This is fun, playing with guys that you see all over Twitter and stuff like that; you get the realization this is the best of the best,” said Briggs, who is uncommitted as of now. “I mean it's a neat thing. It's fun.

"I mean playing baseball is fun, so those extra bats was good.”

Briggs' first hit was a double off the wall in the fourth inning and he legged out a single the next inning. His sac fly came after a two-run single by Staley’s Luke Wilson pulled Missouri within a run, 11-10.

The contest was filled with players headed to Division I schools, though some of them didn’t take part in the event - like Liberty’s Karson Milbrandt, a Vanderbilt commit and projected early round pick in the upcoming MLB Draft.

Future Missouri teammates Jordan Austin and Jack Mosh played, as well as Ball State signee Dylan Grego (Staley) and Missouri State signee Garrett Ferguson (Summit Christian Academy), who tossed two innings of scoreless relief in the second and third innings.

The Kansas squad featured 12 D-I players, including game MVP Sam McAleer of Blue Valley High School and a future Wichita State Shocker.

“I think KC needs this. We need big games like this,” Austin said. “I think it keeps growing and growing and it needs to grow in Kansas City.

"So this is definitely something that's gonna be huge.”

Many of the players in the game were familiar with each other thanks to summer travel teams like Mac-n-Seitz, Building Champions, Prodigy Baseball and Royals Scout Team.

Kansas took a 1-0 lead in the first inning but Missouri answered with three runs in the third inning.

Austin’s first swings with a bat since the Class 6 championship game earlier this month resulted in a triple. Liberty North’s Jeffrey Cisneros drew a walk, before Wilson also got on by a free pass.

Rockhurst’s Nick Dunn, a University of San Francisco signee, hit a sac fly to score Austin. Tucker Judy, from Winnetonka and a St. Charles Community College signee, hit a grounder to shortstop that brought home a run.

A throwing error accounted for the final run on a grounder hit by Lee’s Summit West’s Brock Korbel, a Central Missouri signee.

Kansas put together a five-run fourth for the lead, which it held until the final inning.

Austin had a two-run single in the sixth before Dunn hit another sac fly. A passed ball helped Missouri pull within two, 10-8.

Kansas tacked on an insurance run in the top of the seventh on an RBI single, though the left-handed throwing Briggs nearly got the runner out with a play at the plate from left field.

“He was out; they said they watched the replay and he was out, so we technically should’ve won that game,” Briggs said.

The inaugural game was the brainchild of three high school students in the North Kansas City School District. They planned the game over the past few months and sent invitations to players on both sides of the state line.

Despite temperatures with a heat index of more than 100 degrees, hundreds gathered to watch the contest.