Montgomery, Pinnon spark Baseball's comeback at Bradley

Saturday, May 7

Peoria, Ill.

12:00 PM

Southern Illinois University

18-28, 8-6

Bradley

21-23, 3-11

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Southern Illinois	0	0	0	0	0	0	6	2	3	11	15	3
Bradley	0	0	1	2	1	0	0	0	0	4	9	0

05/07/2011 | 12:00:00 | Baseball

Box Score

May 7, 2011

By Jason Clay
SIUSalukis.com

Box Score

PEORIA, Ill. - The Southern Illinois baseball team climbed out of a four-run hole with a six-run seventh inning and came back to defeat Bradley, 11-4, Saturday afternoon at O'Brien Field.

The Salukis (18-28, 8-6 Missouri Valley Conference) came into the game with a 1-20 record when trailing after six innings, but rallied from a 4-0 deficit after six for the come-from-behind victory. The blown lead was a rarity for the Braves (21-23, 3-11), as prior to Saturday BU owned a 17-1 record when leading after six.

Senior third baseman Blake Pinnon led SIU with a career-high six RBIs off of four hits and he belted his second homer of the season in the eighth, a two run shot to left. For the season, Pinnon now has 24 RBIs and 10 of those have come in his last four games.

"I'm extremely proud of our entire team for hanging in there and persevering," interim head coach Ken Henderson said. "Early on we weren't doing much, but the difference today was even though things weren't going our way, our effort and attitude was much better. Cody (Forsythe) kept us in the ball game long enough to get it going."

A day after SIU was held to its lowest hit output in seven years (just two hits), Southern looked liked the same team at the start of Saturday's game. The Salukis had two hits until exploding in the seven and Southern Illinois finished the game with 13 hits and all 11 runs in the final three innings.

Designated hitter Austin Montgomery, who started the rally in the seventh with a double off the wall, finished the game going 3-for-5 with two RBIs.

Saluki ace Cody Forsythe improves to 7-3 on the year and 5-0 in Valley play with his fifth-straight win. He becomes the first SIU pitcher since Shawn Joy in 2008 to win five league games. Forsythe went eight innings Saturday, allowing nine hits and four runs (two earned). He struck out seven Braves and walked just one.

Bradley finished with nine hits in the game, but had only one hit after the fifth inning. BU reliever Danny Gifford drew the loss to fall to 3-5 on the year.

Mike Tauchman's two-out single to center scored Rob Elliott from second to give the Braves the 1-0 lead after three innings.

A dropped fly ball in shallow center field that would have ended the inning led to two more runs for Bradley in the fourth, pushing its lead up to 3-0.

The Braves added a fourth run in the fifth and Southern could just not get a ball put in play. The Salukis had only two hits through six innings and they came in the first and fifth innings when there were two outs.

Montgomery finally put a charge into the Salukis when led off the seventh inning with a double off the wall in left field. That was SIU's first extra-base hit of the series and it led to its first runs of the series.

Jordan Sivertsen plated Montgomery on an opposite field single, Pinnon drove in two with his double to left field and Chris Murphy tied the game with his sacrifice fly that scored Pinnon.

It all came full circle in the seventh when Montgomery, who started the rally, singled up the middle with the bases loaded and two outs to score two more runs. Just like that, thanks to the five-hit, six-run inning, the Salukis had life and a 6-4 lead.

Pinnon then put the game away in the eighth with his two-run homer to left field, giving SIU the 8-4 lead.

Nick Johnson's double to the wall in left field scored another and Pinnon added two more RBIs in the ninth to cap off his career game.

Freshman reliever Todd Eaton threw a hitless ninth inning to close out the win and set up Sunday's rubber game, which is set to start at noon.