Missouri’s baseball team salvaged the final game of its series with Kansas University with a 6-3 victory Saturday at Hoglund Ballpark, but the Jayhawks won the series and earned the No. 7 seed at next week’s Big 12 tournament in Oklahoma.

After playing nearly flawless baseball for the first two games of the series and earning the two victories they needed to qualify for next week’s Big 12 tourney, the Jayhawks (22-32 overall, 7-16 Big 12) suffered a letdown early on Saturday. An error allowed the Tigers to plate two runs in the top of the first inning, and MU added two more in the third to build a 4-0 lead. Just as it did during the first two games of the series, the early lead held up and the Tigers (28-26, 10-14) walked away with a victory as a few MU fans in the stands chanted “S-E-C, S-E-C” on their way out.

Despite falling behind early, the Jayhawks did not lay down. Michael Suiter polished off his solid series with a solo home run in the fifth to get KU on the board and Kevin Kuntz and James Stanfield followed with RBIs during KU’s three-run fifth.

That was as close as the Jayhawks would get, though, as the Tigers added two more runs in the late innings and walked away with the victory.

The game closes the chapter on the historic Border War series between these two bitter rivals, which dates back to the late 1800s.

It’s possible that KU and sixth-seeded Mizzou will meet next week at the Big 12 tourney, but, beyond that, any future match-ups in any sport seem unlikely — at least for now — and will be left to chance meetings in postseason play.