Baseball swept by Jacksonville State

Sunday, March 13

Jacksonville, Ala.

1:00 P.M.

Southern Illinois University

4-10

Jacksonville St.

11-3

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

03/13/2011 | 12:00:00 | Baseball

Box Score

March 13, 2011

By Jason Clay
SIUSalukis.com

Box Score

JACKSONVILLE, Ala. - The Southern Illinois baseball team was swept by Jacksonville State, as the Gamecocks beat the Salukis, 6-1, Sunday at Rudy Abbott Field.

Southern struggled all series at the plate and scored just three runs, two earned, in the three games. The Salukis fall to 4-10 overall on the year while JSU now stands at 11-3 after its eighth-straight victory.

Jacksonville State committed three errors in the game, but SIU was unable to make them pay. Southern Illinois also shot itself in the foot by stranding 10 men on base, four of which were in scoring position and the Salukis also had a runner thrown out at the plate attempting to score.

Gamecock pitcher Aaron Elias earned his second victory of the season (2-0). He allowed six hits in the game and one run in seven innings of work. Elias struck out three batters and did not walk one.

Saluki freshman Todd Eaton drew the loss to fall to 1-3 on the year. He went 4.2 innings in his third start and allowed six runs off of 10 hits.

Jacksonville State produced 14 hits to Southern's eight in the game. The Gamecocks were led by catcher Christo Sullivan, who was 3-for-4 in his first career start. Four different JSU hitters drove in runs Sunday.

Four of Southern's seven hits came from its first two batters in the lineup, Chris Murphy and Nick Johnson.

Southern Illinois had runners in scoring position in each of the first three innings, but failed to produce and bring a run home.

In the first SIU had runners on second and third with no outs, but couldn't get a hit. Then in the second with two outs, Jake Welch singled through the left side with Wes Neece on second. Neece rounded third on the single and came home, but JSU left fielder Blake Seguin threw him out at the plate.

Seguin robbed the Salukis again in the third. With two outs and runners on first and third, his diving catch on a line drive from Brock Harding saved at least one run, if not two.

Jacksonville State started its scoring in the first with a run off of two hits and it added a second run on a RBI single from Sam Eberle in the third.

After JSU upped its lead to 4-0 in the fourth, SIU finally got on the board with Jordan Sivertsen's sacrifice fly in the fifth that plated Murphy.

The Gamecocks added two more runs in the bottom of the fifth and coasted from there to complete the series sweep.