If Bill Uelmen’s parents could make it to every Iowa State baseball game, the senior third baseman probably would have passed Mike Busch’s single-season school home run record of 17 a while ago.

With his family in the stands on Friday, Uelmen belted two homers against Missouri to give him 13 on the season. Earlier this year, the Uelmens were present to see their son knock two balls out of the park at Minnesota as well.

He totaled seven RBIs in the contest, tying a 17-year-old school record, but ISU lost 14-9.

“Bill had a great day, but it still wasn’t good enough to win the team game,” ISU Manager Lyle Smith said.

“I was struggling,” Uelmen said. “I was just happy to get a few hits.”

Uelmen had not reached base on a hit in his previous 10 trips before his first-inning blast on Friday.

His three-run home run gave ISU a 3-0 lead, which they maintained until the top of the third, when back-to-back roundtrippers by Tiger batters Griffin Moore and Mike Rallo evened the score.

Missouri jumped ahead by three after plating two runners in the fourth on three hits.

The Tiger’s fifth inning started with a walk and an RBI double. The two-bagger brought Smith to the mound. He took the game ball from ISU starter Brad Waldron and placed it into the hand of middle reliever Darin Nelson.

The move proved to be costly immediately. The first batter Nelson faced, Jake Epstein, delivered for the Tigers. He lofted a fly ball just over the leaping Aaron Runk and over the left field fence to extend the Missouri lead to 8-3.

A Matt McDonough single, one of his three on the afternoon, scored Runk in the bottom of inning five to narrow the margin to 8-4. With two on and two outs, second baseman Jade O’Brien drove the ball to deep center. But the blast was hauled in at the wall to end the Cyclone threat.

“It’s a game of inches, and definitely today the inches went their way,” Smith said.

Two innings later, the Cyclones again mounted a rally. Jeff Duncan and McDonough led off the frame with singles. Uelmen delivered a sacrifice fly, driving home Duncan. This time, O’Brien delivered an RBI double to pull the Cyclones within two, at 8-6.

The Missouri eighth proved fatal for ISU however. Nelson walked the leadoff hitter Torre Tyson and then hit Ryan Fry with a pitch. With runners on first and third and one away, closer Steve Larkin came in to stop the Tiger uprising.

Smith said Larkin’s job was to force Rallo into hitting a groundball to the drawn-in infield.

Larkin did his job, as Rallo chopped a grounder to third baseman Uelmen. Tyson broke for the plate at the crack of the bat, but appeared to be an easy target at home. However, Uelmen had trouble getting the ball out of his glove and threw home wildly, allowing a run to score.

Smith said that play was the turning point of the game. “I don’t know what happened out there,” he said. “We’ll never know [what would have happened].”

Despite his efforts at the plate, Uelmen was disappointed that his “bad play” led to Tiger tallies.

Missouri added another pair of runs in the inning to jump out to an 11-6 lead. Three runs in the ninth, coming by way of Fry’s 22nd homer of the year, sealed the Cyclones’ fate.

A three-run jack by Uelmen in the last half of the ninth accounted for the 14-9 final.

“We made a run, but it was too little, too late,” Smith said.

Waldron took the loss for ISU, dropping his mark to 4-4.

Every Tiger starter had at least one base hit. In all, the club pounded out 15 hits, while ISU rapped out 13.

Even though the loss was bad news, the ISU squad got even worse news before the game.

First baseman Shawn Leimbek will not be able to play the rest of the year after sustaining a fractured ankle in Wednesday’s nightcap against Iowa.

The senior slugger was hitting .413, with five home runs and 36 RBI.

“That creates a huge void,” Smith said of losing his third-place batter. “It takes a .400 hitter out of your lineup. We don’t have that kind of depth.”