Southern Illinois University
11-3
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Western Michigan
2-9
Salukis fall to Broncos, 11-8
03/10/2022 | 7:12:00 | Baseball
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Western Michigan got out to a 5-1 lead after three innings to build a lead that stood up in an 11-8 win over the Southern Illinois Salukis in Thursday's series opener.
The Broncos scored two in the first, three in the third and two in the seventh. Southern plated a run in the top of the first and temporarily trimmed its deficit to three after a three-run seventh, but Western Michigan answered with a four-spot in the eighth. The Salukis scored four unanswered, using a pair of home runs by Nick Hagedorn and Evan Martin to get to within three but that was as close as they could get.
"It was one of those games where we never got enough going," head coach Lance Rhodes said. "Weather it was on the mound and we didn't make the right pitch at the right time, defensively didn't make a play at the right time and we didn't get enough hits at the right time. It wasn't clicking on any facet of the game when we needed it to. When you do that over the course of an entire game, the result is usually what it was and that's a loss."
The potent Saluki offense was held in check for much of the game as Southern tallied just four hits through the first six innings. The Salukis also grounded into three double plays and gave up a season-high 11 runs.
"We just felt like at any point we were going to have a big inning to get back into the game and we were just waiting, waiting and waiting until we ran out of time," Rhodes said. "We just didn't make the plays that we needed to make- if we had done that we probably only give up eight runs and then its an 8-8 game. We just didn't do enough."
Southern came alive late, as it plated seven runs on eight hits in the final three innings. Hagedorn hit a solo home run in the eighth, his first of the season, and Martin hit a two-out, two-run home run in the ninth but it was too little, too late.
"Good thing was that we didn't quit," Rhodes said. "We scored seven runs at the backend of the game and continued to fight all the way through but we can't dig ourselves that big of a hole and try to fight out of it."
Coming off back-to-back wins to start the week, which included last night's 12-5 win at Arkansas State, the Salukis weren't as crisp in any facet of the game Thursday as they have been in their 13 games prior. Southern starting pitcher Jordan Bloemer was tagged for five earned runs on six hits in three innings while Tanner Lewis and Trey McDaniel combined to allowed six runs on six hits over the final six innings. Defensively, Southern just couldn't make a big play to get back in the dugout and offensively, the Salukis left eight runners on base which included at least one runner stranded in five innings.
Kaeber Rog (2-for-4), J.T. Weber (2-for-4) and Grey Epps (2-for-4) each had multi-hit games in the loss.
The rest of the series between Western Michigan and SIU is to be determined. With snow in the forecast for Friday, Southern will either play one game beginning at 11 a.m. on Friday or play a doubleheader beginning at 11 a.m. on Sunday. Please continue to monitor SIUSalukis.com and @SIU_Baseball on twitter for updates.
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Team Stats
Pitching:
W: ARMBRUSTMACH (1-1)
L: Bloemer, Jordan (1-1)
S: BERG, H. (1)
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Batting:
2B: SWINEHART 1
3B: McINTYRE, J. 1 ; ALLEN, J. 1
HR: McINTYRE, J. 1 ; SULLIVAN, C. 1
RBI: McINTYRE, J. 3 ; MORRISON, W. 1 ; SWINEHART 1 ; SULLIVAN, C. 2 ; ALLEN, J. 3 ; MISSAL, R. 1
SF: MORRISON, W. 1
Base Running:
RUNS: CHARPING, C. 3 ; McINTYRE, J. 2 ; SWINEHART 2 ; SULLIVAN, C. 2 ; NEVAR, D. 1 ; ALLEN, J. 1
SB: CHARPING, C. 2 ; McINTYRE, J. 1
HBP: CHARPING, C. 1
Batting:
HR: Martin, Evan 1 ; Hagedorn, Nick 1
RBI: Weber, J.T. 2 ; Bandy, Nathan 1 ; Jensen, Zack 1 ; Martin, Evan 2 ; Hagedorn, Nick 1
SF: Weber, J.T. 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Cleveland, Cody 1 ; Rog, Kaeber 2 ; Weber, J.T. 1 ; Jensen, Zack 1 ; Martin, Evan 1 ; Hagedorn, Nick 1 ; Epps, Grey 1
SB: Ortiz, J.D. 1
HBP: Jensen, Zack 1
