Baseball falls to Evansville in series opener

Friday, May 14

Carbondale, Ill.

3:00 PM

Southern Illinois University

23-26, 6-9

Evansville

28-22, 8-8

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Evansville	2	0	2	1	0	0	0	9	14	18	0
Southern Illinois	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	8	2

05/14/2010 | 12:00:00 | Baseball

Box Score

May 14, 2010

By Jason Clay
www.SIUSalukis.com

Box Score

CARBONDALE, Ill. - Sophomore first baseman Chris Serritella extended his hitting streak to 20 games, but Evansville took game one of the series from the Southern Illinois baseball team, 14-2 in eight innings on Friday at Abe Martin Field.

The Purple Aces (28-22, 8-8 MVC) held a 5-2 lead after the fourth inning. A nine-run, eighth inning from UE put the nail in the coffin for the Salukis (23-26, 6-9 MVC). The loss was the fourth-straight for Southern Illinois.

"We've had several Friday's where we came out and got hammered pretty good, but came back in game two and played pretty well and won," head coach Dan Callahan said. "We just have to block this out. It wasn't a good day for us, it was a good day for them."

Southern was out-hit 18-8 in the game. The Purple Aces tied their school record with eight doubles, three that came from right fielder Nate Smith, and got two home runs. Both homers came in the big eighth inning and one of those was a grand slam by the MVC home run leader, Cody Fick.

Evansville right-handed pitcher Keegan Dennis scattered eight hits, but only gave up two runs and his defense committed no errors behind him. He had six strikeouts and three walks in seven innings, as he went on to pick up the victory, improving his record to 3-3 on the year.

Saluki right-hander Nathan Forer (2-3) drew the loss Friday. He went six innings, giving up nine hits and five runs (four earned). Forer finished the day with a career-high six strikeouts.

Junior second baseman Blake Pinnon was the only Saluki with two hits in the game. Serritella finished 1-for-3 at the plate with one RBI and one walk.

Evansville had four doubles in the first three innings and three of the four drove in runs, helping them take an early 4-1 lead.

SIU's one run came in the first on a sacrifice fly by Austin Montgomery that scored Chris Murphy. The Dawgs missed their chance for a big first inning, as they had the bases loaded with no outs.

Serritella cut the UE lead down by one run with his RBI single in the third that scored Jordan Sivertsen, who led off the inning with a walk.

A pair of errors in the fourth inning cost the Saluki their fifth run of the game.

Southern Illinois had two base runners on in three of the four innings from the third through the sixth, but only got the one run on Serritella's RBI single in the third. Evansville held that 5-2 lead before its outburst in the eighth to end the game.