Southern Illinois University
Wichita St.
Salukis Fall to Wichita State, 21-9
03/18/2001 | 12:00:00 | Baseball
March 18, 2001
Wichita State University (10-8, 3-1) scored 21 runs on 22 hits, including four home runs, to hammer Southern Illinois University Carbondale (7-12, 1-3 MVC) in the series finale of the Missouri Valley Conference opening weekend for both teams at Abe Martin Field on Sunday, March 18. The Shockers won the series three games to one.
"If you would have told me at the beginning of the day that we were going to pound out 17 hits and score nine runs against Wichita I would have liked our chances. I thought we were set up with our pitching with Bill Clayton and Victor Hockett. We did a good job offensively and came back twice from 5-0 and 9-4 deficits without panicing," said Dan Callahan, Saluki head coach. "When they put up eight runs in the sixth that made it tough. You can only come back so many times against a good team. We did a poor job on the mound and were very average defensively. Today is one of those games you just have to forget."
The Salukis have never won a regular season series against Wichita State and have only split two regular season series between the teams. Despite losing the series Callahan was happy with the team's offense the last two games.
"I was concerned after game two (only one hit) about the team offensively, but we did a great job offensively yesterday and did the same thing today. You have 17 hits and nine runs against Wichita you like your chances, but we weren't even in the game. We found a way to get a win out of the series and I thought we had a chance to split the series, we just didn't pitch well enough to make it happen," added Callahan.
Trailing 5-0, the Salukis scored two runs in the third and fourth innings to cut the lead to 5-4. The Shockers responded with four runs in the fifth to take a 9-4 lead. In the bottom of the fifth, SIU scored three runs to cut the lead to 9-7, but Wichita scored eight runs in the sixth to take a 17-7 lead and put the game away.
Luke Nelson tied a career high with five hits, going 5-for-6 with a home run, 2-RBIs, and a run scored. Dane Kerley (2-for-3, RBI), Ryan Murray (2-for-4, two runs scored, RBI), and Jeff Stanek (2-for-5, two runs scored) also had strong days at the plate for SIU.
Bill Clayton (2-2) suffered the loss. Clayton pitched two innings, allowing five runs on five hits, while striking out four and walking two. The Salukis used six pitchers in the loss. Victor Hockett, Jason Westemeir, Chad McCann, Scott Lucht and Josh Joiner followed Clayton, but couldn't slow down the Shockers.
Wichita reliever Mike Dennison (2-0) got the win by throwing one and a third innings, despite giving up three runs on six hits.
The Salukis will play a single game against St. Louis University on Wednesday, March 21, at 2 p.m. in St. Louis. SIU will host Northern Iowa for a four game MVC series on March 23-25, at Abe Martin Field.
