Eastern Beats SIUE In Baseball Competition

Eastern Illinois baseball jumped out to a 6-0 lead after the first two innings, but Southern Illinois made things interesting late pulling within three runs. The Panthers held off the Salukis’ comeback attempt and won by a score of 10-7 on Wednesday at Coaches Stadium.

The Panthers ran their winning streak up to three-games and improved to 5-19 on the year. Southern Illinois dropped to 12-14.

After Southern Illinois got the first EIU batter to line out to begin the bottom of the first inning, three straight Panthers reached base to load up the bags for Matt Albert. Albert crushed his second home run in as many days, this time a grand slam, and gave the Panthers a 4-0 advantage.

Frankie Perrone homered to lead-off the top of the second inning for the Panthers. Andrew Curran followed with a bunt single and stole second to move into scoring position. A Southern Illinois error moved Curran up to third base as the junior came around to score on a Logan Beaman sacrifice fly to extend the EIU lead to 6-0.
Southern Illinois cut the deficit to 6-1 with a run in the top of the third on an RBI fielder’s choice off the bat of Will Farmer.

Eastern Illinois responded with another big inning in the bottom of the fourth. After Perrone got hit by a pitch to start the inning, Curran sacrificed Perrone to second with a bunt. Jimmy Govern and Beaman followed the Curran sacrifice bunt with an RBI double each. The Panthers got their final run of the inning on an RBI single from Dougie Parks as Eastern Illinois took a 9-1 lead.

Southern Illinois added a run in the top of the sixth on an RBI single by Ryan Smith and pushed across two more runs in the top of the seventh on a two-run single from Greg Lambert.

Nicholas McCormick got the EIU offense going again in the bottom of the seventh inning with a lead-off double. A sacrifice bunt by Justin Smith moved McCormick up to second base. After a wild pitch, McCormick came around the final 90-feet on a Joseph Duncan RBI single.

Things got interesting late as Southern Illinois loaded the bases with just one away in the top of the eighth inning. Ryan Sabo plated two runs with an RBI single to left. SIU cut the EIU lead to three at 10-7 on an RBI sacrifice fly from Farmer, but that would be as close as the Salukis would get as Alex Cain cruised the rest of the way to seal the EIU victory.

Chase Thurston picked up his first win of the season for the Panthers as he allowed just two runs in six innings of work.

Beaman and Govern both finished the game with two hits each to lead the EIU offense.

Eastern Illinois will now prepare for a three-game set this weekend at OVC leader Tennessee Tech.