Early troubles doom Baseball at Murray State

Wednesday, March 17

Murray, Ky.

2:00 PM

Southern Illinois University

5-11

Murray State

8-8

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Southern Illinois	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	3	7	1
Murray State	3	3	1	0	0	0	0	1	X	8	13	1

03/17/2010 | 12:00:00 | Baseball

Box Score

March 17, 2010

By Jason Clay
www.SIUSalukis.com

Box Score

MURRAY, Ky. - Southern Illinois gave up seven runs in the first three innings as they fell to Murray State, 8-3, here Wednesday at Johnny Reagan Field.

The Salukis have now lost four-straight games and fall to 5-11 on the year. MSU, who beat No. 22 Kentucky on the road Monday, improves to 8-8 with its fourth win in five games.

The Thoroughbreds, which had 11 of its 13 hits in the first three innings, jumped out to a 7-2 lead behind the top of their order and never looked back.

"We dug ourselves a hole early on that we couldn't climb out of," head coach Dan Callahan said. "Our pitching got better in the middle innings on, but it just turned out to be an insurmountable lead."

Southern Illinois used a committee of pitchers for the midweek game. Saluki freshmen Cody Forsythe and Lee Weld gave up the seven Thoroughbred runs to start the game before seniors Daniel Etienne, Nathan Forer and Jimmy Cornell kept the `Bred scoreless until the eighth. Forsythe (0-2) picked up the loss on the day.

Left-hander Jake Doze (2-2) threw seven innings to pick up his second victory of the season for MSU. He gave up six of Southern's seven hits on the day and only allowed three runs, one of which was unearned.

Murray State's first five hitters in the lineup accounted for 11 of its hits Wednesday and were responsible for driving in all eight runs in the game. Its 3-5 hitters had seven of those RBIs, with right fielder Daniel Hill leading the way with three. First baseman Wes Cunningham was 3-for-5 at the plate with a double and two RBIs.

Senior shortstop Michael Stalter led the way offensively for SIU. He was 2-for-4 at the plate with his first triple of the season. Freshman Nick Johnson had one hit and an RBI, as he still has hit safely in every game that he's played in to start his career (12 games).

The Salukis plated two runs in the first inning on consecutive ground outs when the bases were loaded. Tyler Bullock and Johnson were responsible for bringing home Chris Murphy and Blake Pinnon to open up the game.

Murray State had 12 hits through the first four innings and all of them were singles except for one. The exception was Zach Noonan's solo homer in the third that gave the Thoroughbreds a 7-2 lead.

Etienne came on to pitch in the bottom of the fourth and he posted the first scoreless inning of the day by a Saluki pitcher.

After giving up three hits and walking one in the first, Donze settled in and retired 14 of the next 15 batters to keep the Murray State lead at five.

Southern Illinois took advantage of a couple MSU miscues in the seventh to score its first run since the first inning. Aaron Roberts reached base on an error to start the inning and after he stole second, he advanced over to third on a wild pitch. That allowed Pinnon to bring him home on a sacrifice fly to left, closing the gap down to 7-3.

Donze exited after the seventh for Matt McGaha. With one out Stalter tripled to right center, but McGaha held strong and retired the next two batters to get out of the inning scot-free.

Murray State tacked on one run in the eighth and held SIU scoreless in the top of the ninth to take the game from Southern, 8-3.

The Salukis return to Abe Martin field after six-straight road games to host Northern Illinois, March 19-21. Game one of the series begins on Friday at 3 p.m.