Baseball drops fifth-straight

Tuesday, March 15

Murfreesboro, Tenn.

3:00 P.M.

Southern Illinois University

4-11

Middle Tennessee

4-10

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Southern Illinois	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	4	5	11	1
Middle Tennessee	0	0	3	1	1	4	0	0	X	9	13	1

03/15/2011 | 12:00:00 | Baseball

Box Score

March 15, 2011

By Jason Clay
SIUSalukis.com

Box Score

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Middle Tennessee scored nine runs off of 13 hits to hand the Southern Illinois baseball team a 9-5 loss Tuesday at Reese Smith Jr. Field.

The Salukis have now lost five-straight games for the second time this season and fall to 4-11 on the year. The Blue Raiders improve to 4-10 with their first home victory in eight tries.

Middle Tennessee has won seven-straight over Southern Illinois dating back to the 2009 season.

Saluki left-hander Brad Drust drew the loss in his first career start. He went three innings and gave up five hits and three runs, but just one of those were earned. Drust walked one and struck out one.

Blue Raider pitcher Eric Gilley improved to 1-1 on the year with the win. He gave up just two hits and no runs in five innings and had four strikeouts against two walks.

Four of Southern's five runs were scored in the ninth inning. Nick Johnson drove in one with an RBI single and Jordan Sivertsen's third homer on the year accounted for the other three runs.

Southern Illinois had 11 hits in the game, but SIU stranded nine on base. Three of those came in the first inning when SIU left the bases loaded. Sivertsen, Chris Murphy and Donny Duschinsky all had two hits.

Middle Tennessee got a two-out RBI single from Will Skinner and two unearned runs on a Saluki throwing error to take a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the third.

The Blue Raiders added one run in both the fourth and fifth innings to blow the game open.

Southern got on the scoreboard in the sixth when a throwing error from Blue Raider third baseman Hank LaRue allowed Duschinsky to score from third.

Middle Tennessee added four runs in the sixth to put the game out of reach and SIU's four runs in the ninth were not enough to overcome the large deficit.