Baseball completes sweep of Evansville

Sunday, April 10

Evansville, Ind.

1:00 PM

Southern Illinois University

11-19, 3-0

Evansville

17-12, 0-3

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Southern Illinois	0	0	3	0	0	0	2	1	0	6	12	1
Evansville	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	1	3	10	1

04/10/2011 | 12:00:00 | Baseball

Box Score

April 10, 2011

By Jason Clay
SIUSalukis.com

Box Score

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - The Southern Illinois baseball team defeated Evansville, 6-3, Sunday at Braun Stadium to complete the series sweep over the Aces in its first Missouri Valley Conference series of the season.

Southern (11-19, 3-0 MVC) has now won a season-high four-straight games and have swept the Aces (17-12, 0-3) the last two times it has visited Braun Stadium. Southern has also won nine of its last 11 games over UE.

The Salukis received phenomenal pitching from their starters over the weekend. All three starters lasted at least seven innings and the trio of Cameron Maldonado, Cody Forsythe and Brad Drust combined to allow just four runs, only three that were earned.

That pitching was the key to the sweep, interim head coach Ken Henderson said.

"If you get that kind of pitching for three-straight starts, you are going to win a lot of series," Henderson said. "The No. 1 credit goes to those three starters and we got three quality outings."

Brad Drust was Southern's ace on Sunday, where he picked up his first win as a Saluki (1-2). It was by far his most efficient game and his best outing in his fourth start of the season. Drust scattered eight hits, struck out five, walked three and allowed just two runs in eight innings.

Freshman reliever Tyler Dray, who recorded the save in the first two games of the series, pitched the ninth inning. He did give up one run, but got Greg Wallace to pop out with runners on second and third to end the game.

Jordan Sivertsen and Nick Johnson hit back-to-back homers in the seventh inning when it was a one-run game. It was the first time since April 25, 2010 that SIU hit back-to-back jacks. The homers were the second of the series for both Sivertsen and Johnson.

Chris Murphy hit Southern's third homer of the game in the eighth, which pushed the lead up to 6-2. Murphy also doubled for the third-straight game.

Southern Illinois has just been on fire offensively. To go with its three homers, SIU also hit five doubles and finished with 12 hits. The Salukis have had 10 or more hits in seven-straight games and finished their first conference series with 33 hits and 19 runs.

"We didn't execute it as well today, but we got some big hits," Henderson said referring to Southern's 14 runners left on base in the game. "We still swung it well over the weekend and I'm very, very proud of our group."

First baseman Wes Neece led the team by going 3-for-6 with a double and one run scored. Murphy and Sivertsen both finished with two hits and Johnson was 1-for-3 with two runs scored.

Senior Blake Pinnon had a three-run double in the third and he finished the day going 2-for-5 with those three RBIs.

Evansville pitcher Cody Fick, suffered his first loss of the season. He came into the game with a 5-0 record and 1.91 ERA, but gave up five runs and nine hits in six innings. Fick, the league's leading hitter coming into the day with a .429 batting average, went 0-for-5 at the plate.

The Salukis play five games this coming week, four of which are at home. SIU hosts Southeast Missouri State Tuesday and then Missouri State over the weekend for a three-game series. SIU plays at Illinois Wednesday night.

"We're a more confident team right now, so we got to keep that going," Henderson said. "Our starting pitching has to continue to be good, we're playing outstanding defense and we just got to continue doing what we do."