South Alabama edges SIU, 4-3, in 10 innings

Sunday, March 9

Mobile, Ala.

1:00 PM

Southern Illinois University

8-6

South Alabama

8-7

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

03/09/2014 | 12:00:00 | Baseball

Box Score

March 9, 2014

Box Score

MOBILE, Ala. - South Alabama handed Southern Illinois its second 10th inning walk-off defeat of the weekend and finished a three-game sweep of the Salukis (8-6) in a 4-3 game Sunday afternoon at Stanky Field.

"I'm proud of our effort," SIU Coach Ken Henderson said. "We played our rear ends off all day. It was a good game, and we just came up on the short end."

Hayden Jones drove in the winning run for the Jaguars (8-7) with a sacrifice fly on a sinking fly ball to left field. Tyler Rolland made the basket catch on the run, but had little chance to throw out Davis Knapp before he crossed the plate to end the game. Knapp reached base when he was hit by a pitch with one out and moved to third on Bud Collura's single.

Southern led for the first seven innings of the game before surrendering the lead in the bottom of the eighth. With SIU leading 4-2, Derek Fogel was the first man out of the bullpen and started the eighth inning for the Salukis. He allowed a one-out single to Knapp and walked Collura. Jones doubled home Knapp to cut the lead to 4-3, and the next batter, Matt Wojciechowski hit a sac fly to right to score Collura and knot the game at 4-4.

"It was a great college baseball game," Henderson said. "The only disappointment is that the tying and winning runs were free passes, but I don't want to dwell on that because we did so many great things."

Kyle Pruemer took the loss for SIU. After pitching a relatively easy scoreless ninth, he allowed the game winner in the 10th to drop his record to 1-1 on the season.

Southern Illinois had opportunities to blow the game open but stranded 12 runners. The Salukis twice left the bases loaded, including the top of the ninth when they packed the sacks with one out, and Donny Duschinsky and Parker Osborne both struck out on a called third strike.

SIU could not capitalize on a strong outing from starting pitcher Aaron Hauge. For the second week in a row, he was impressive on the hill and put the Salukis in position to win. Hauge allowed two runs in seven innings, the longest outing of his young Saluki career and left the game in line for the victory with SIU in front 4-2. He threw only 82 pitches and recorded two strikeouts and one walk.

"He pounds the zone," Henderson said. "He gets ahead of hitters, and he doesn't beat himself. If you can do that, you're going to win a lot of games in college baseball. He has pretty good stuff, and he doesn't get himself in trouble. He certainly threw well enough to win."

Southern started the game by immediately jumping on Jaguars starter Jared Gates for a run off two hits in the first inning. Jake Welch led off the game with a single and scored on Ryan Casillas' sacrifice fly.

SIU added two more in the second inning. Parker Osborne banged a double off the left field wall to start the inning and scored on Ryan Rosthenhausler's double to the left-center field gap. Rosthenhausler then scored on Jake Welch's second single of the game to stretch the lead to 3-0.

"We were ready to go," Henderson said. "We had the same energy we had Friday night. Our effort was good."

Welch finished the day with three singles for his second three-hit day of the weekend. His second-inning single knocked Gates out of the game after recording only four outs. He was charged with three runs off five hits.

Matt Bolger recorded USA's first hit of the day when he tomahawked a one-out home run over the leftfield wall to cut the Salukis' lead to 3-1 in the bottom of the third.

The Jaguars cut it to 3-2 when rightfielder Cole Gleason doubled to the gap in left-center field to score Matt Wojciechowski, who was grazed by a pitch to start the inning.

The Salukis bumped the lead back up to two runs when Rosthenhausler singled home Osborne to give SIU a 4-2 advantage in the sixth inning after Osborne hit a one-out single.

With the loss, SIU has lost three in a row for the first time this season. The losing streak comes after the Salukis entered the weekend having won seven of their previous eight games.

"Our kids have their heads down right now, but they need to keep their heads up because we played our rear ends off," Henderson said. "They just executed a little better than us down the stretch, and that's the difference."