Bullpen leads SIU to weekend sweep of Western Illinois

Sunday, March 5

Carbondale, Ill

1 p.m.

Southern Illinois University

7-4

Western Illinois

0-10

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

03/05/2017 | 8:44:00 | Baseball

Box Score

By: By John Lock | SIUSalukis.com

CARBONDALE, Ill. – The Southern Illinois baseball team completed a three-game sweep of Western Illinois with a 3-2 victory on Sunday afternoon at Itchy Jones Stadium. After WIU scored two in the third, Southern's bullpen threw 6.1 scoreless innings to secure the win.

"Congrats to our bullpen," SIU head coach Ken Henderson said. "The bullpen won the game—six innings of zeros. Alex Gutermuth was outstanding, and we pieced it together until we got to Netemeyer."

Southern (7-4) started the scoring with a three-run second inning. Jake Hand led off the inning with a single, and Mitch Fairfield followed with a one-out single. Ryan Sabo hit an RBI single that moved Fairfield to third, and Fairfield scored on a balk. Connor Kopach came through with an RBI double that scored what turned out to be the game-winning run.

WIU (0-10) got two back in the top of the third. The Leathernecks bunted three times in the inning and stole three bases, allowing them to score two runs on only one swinging single. SIU starter Joey Marciano, who was pitching for the first time since opening weekend, was pulled with two outs after his pitch count approached 70.

"It's never been his stuff--he has the ability to throw quality pitches--but he has to do the other things," Henderson said of Marciano. "His pitch count got up, and he has to be more efficient, but it's the first time he's thrown in two weeks. I can live with that. But he has to do the other things better."

After SIU had five hits in the first two innings, the Salukis were held to just one infield single the rest of the game.

"Their guy mixed speeds well and didn't give us a lot to hit, and we didn't adjust," Henderson said. "We need to do a better job of making adjustments. I've said it for three weeks now, but we need to take what the pitcher gives us. We have big physical guys, and they're trying to do too much."

But SIU earned the win with the best game of the year out of the bullpen. Alex Gutermuth, who earned his first career win, relieved Marciano and threw 2.2 outstanding innings, allowing just one hit and one walk while striking out three. Jamison Steege allowed just one walk in 1.2 innings after that, which got SIU to the eighth maintaining a 3-2 lead.

Jacob Williams pitched a perfect eighth and handed the ball to Ryan Netemeyer, who nailed down his third save of the season and second of the series. Combined, SIU's bullpen pitched 6.1 scoreless innings, allowing just two hits while striking out five.

Up next, SIU hits the road for a nine-game road stretch. The Salukis travel to Murray State on Tuesday before a weekend series at Memphis. Southern plays at Arkansas State the following Tuesday before playing two against Toledo and two more against Illinois in Champaign, Ill., from March 17-19. After that, 24 of the next 32 games will be at Itchy Jones Stadium.

"The schedule has been decent, but it's about to get extremely tough," Henderson said. "Memphis has been playing well, and Jacksonville State is a good ball club. Any time you play Illinois, it's a challenge. We're going to play some good people. We just need to keep getting better, keep improving on things. I don't mind playing on the road. If we're going to be a good club, we need to win on the road. It will be nice to be home the last half of the year, so if we can survive (the road stretch), we'll be fine."

NOTES

SIU swept WIU in the home opening series for the second-straight year ... Hunter Anderson was held hitless to end a seven-game hitting streak ... Netemeyer's save was the 16th of his career, tying Tyler Dray (2011-14) for fourth in SIU history ... SIU improved to 36-10 all-time against Western Illinois. The Salukis have won 18-straight games over the Leathernecks dating back to 1967 ... The Salukis improved to 7-2 in nine weekends games and have swept two of the first three series of the year ... SIU's pitching staff had a 1.67 ERA in the weekend series.