North Florida walks off in the 10th against Saluki Baseball, 5-4

Friday, February 23

Jacksonville, Fla.

5 p.m. CT

Southern Illinois University

1-4

North Florida

2-3

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Southern Illinois	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	2	0	4	11	3
North Florida	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	2	0	1	5	8	4

North Florida walks off in the 10th against Saluki Baseball, 5-4

02/23/2018 | 9:32:00 | Baseball

Box Score

By: By John Lock | SIUSalukis.com

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The Southern Illinois baseball team scored two runs in the top of the ninth inning to send the game to extra innings, but North Florida walked off in the bottom of the 10th with a two-out single. The Ospreys (2-3) won the series opener, 5-4.

"I love the way we battled," SIU head coach Ken Henderson said. "We have worked really hard to build a winning culture, and part of that is competing and believing. I absolutely love the way these guys battled."

SIU (1-4) starting pitcher Michael Baird was outstanding in his second start of the season. He nearly threw an immaculate inning in the second, striking out the side on 10 pitches. He threw 7.1 innings in just 84 pitches and took a no-decision.

North Florida scored its four runs off Baird (two earned) on only five hits. UNF got an infield single and an error to put a runner in scoring position in the third inning. That run scored on a two-out single. Another run scored in the fifth on a two-out single. In the eighth, the leadoff UNF hitter struck out but reached on a ball in the dirt. SIU committed an error on the ensuing sacrifice bunt attempt, and both runs scored.

"He was in complete control," Henderson said of Baird. "Give (North Florida) credit. They picked guys up. They only left three guys on base, so when they had guys on base, they took advantage of it."

Trailing 1-0 early, Southern's offense tied the game in the top of the fourth with a two-out Kenton Crawford RBI single. Trailing 2-1 in the eighth, Nikola Vasic came through with a clutch RBI single. Then, after the two tough-luck runs in the bottom of the eighth against Baird, SIU strung together four singles to tie the games. Jared Kengott hit the game-tying RBI single to send the game to extra innings.

"The last four innings, we looked like a really good offensive club," Henderson said. "That's the best we've looked all year. We were hitting a lot of fly balls early. We took the ball out of the air; and consequently, we started getting a lot of base hits. We gave ourselves a chance. We need to take some positives from how we played the last four or five innings."

Freshman Trey McDaniel was outstanding in relief of Baird. He threw 2.1 innings of relief. He exited with two outs and two on in the 10th inning and took the loss after UNF hit a walk-off single against Ryan Netemeyer.

"In those innings, every single pitch you throw is huge," Henderson said of McDaniel's performance. "They had guys in scoring position, and he did a phenomenal job. We walked one guy on the night in 10 innings, and we struck out 10. That's a great job by those two guys (Baird and McDaniel)."

In the early innings, SIU had two runners thrown out stealing. In the fifth, Addison Fugitt led off with a double but was hung up between second and third.

"We lost some guys on the bases, but we also weren't aggressive in a couple situations," Henderson said. "If you're an aggressive team, you're going to lose some guys on the bases. We had some bad breaks on dirt balls. The guy picked them clean a couple times and threw us out. That's a bad break. We're going to continue to run on those."

SIU and North Florida will play the second game of the series on Saturday at 1 p.m. Central Time. Southern Illinois will start Jamison Steege.