Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
Southeast Missouri
Baseball Beats SEMo 10-5, Snaps Five-Game Losing Streak To Indians
04/17/2002 | 12:00:00 | Baseball
April 17, 2002
Carbondale, Ill. - Toby Barnett and Sal Frisella each homered to lead Southern Illinois University (19-14, 7-9 MVC) to a 10-5 win over Southeast Missouri State University (17-14, 7-2 OVC) on Wednesday at Abe Martin Field. The win snaps a five game losing streak to the Indians dating back to 2000. SEMO won an earlier meeting 8-2 on April 3.
"They've had our number for a while so it's a good win. I think there was a carry over from the Sunday win at SMS last week which gave us some confidence," stated Dan Callahan, Saluki head coach. "We played well and now we have the monkey off our back against SEMO which means something and gives us some momentum going into the Evansville series."
SIU jumped all over SEMO early, scoring runs in the second, third and fourth innings to take a 9-0 lead for Bill Clayton (1-1).
In the second inning, Greg Andrews two-RBI single and Ryan Murray's RBI single gave SIU a 3-0 lead. In the third inning, Ross Kowzan singled in a run, Justin Maurath singled in two runs and later scored on a wild pitch to put the Salukis up 7-0. The dawgs added two runs in the fourth inning on a two-run homer to leftfield by Barnett for a 9-0 advantage.
Meanwhile, Clayton didn't allow a hit through 4 2/3 innings. The sophomore finally allowed three runs in the top of the fifth on a single and three walks before leaving after five innings. Clayton walked four and allowed one hit to pick up his first win of the year.
After Southeast cut the lead to 9-3 in the fifth inning, the Indians added two runs on back to back solo homers off SIU reliever Jason Westemeir in the top of the sixth to cut the lead to 9-5.
SIU's Frisella responded with a towering home run to left in the bottom of the sixth inning, his team-leading and career-high seventh blast of the year, to provide the final 10-5 margin.
SEMO starter Andy Sheridan (2-2) allowed six runs on seven hits to suffer the loss.
Frisella (2-for-3, HR, 3 runs, RBI), Barnett (3-for-5, HR, 3 runs, 2 RBI), P.J. Finigan (2-for-5, run), Cory Newman (2-for-5), Maurath (1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBI), Kowzan (1-for-3, run, RBI), Andrews (1-for-4, 2 RBI) and Murray (1-for-4, RBI) led the Saluki attack. Newman extended his hitting streak to 20 games with a single in the first inning.
SIU won the game without Dan Callahan on the bench. Callahan was suspended by the Missouri Valley Conference for the SEMO game on Wednesday morning after a league review of an ejection against Southwest Missouri State University last Friday. The review led to an additional one game suspension today for unsportsmanlike behavior. Callahan already was suspended for game two of the SMS series last Saturday due to the incident.
The Salukis will host the University of Evansville in MVC play this weekend. SIU plays a single game on Friday at 3 p.m., a doubleheader on Saturday at 12 p.m. and a single game at 1 p.m. on Sunday at Abe Martin Field.
