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LAKELAND, Fla. – Ben Thoma homered twice and recorded a career-high five RBIs, but Army hit four longballs and put together a trio of four-run innings to defeat Eastern Illinois baseball, 13-6, Tuesday morning in spring break action at Henley Field.

The game was scoreless until the fourth inning when Ben Koenigsfield connected for a grand slam to left center. The Panthers (3-11) responded with two runs in the bottom of the frame on Thoma's first homer of the game, and made it a one-run game with two more tallies in the sixth but could never pull even.

Thanks to three-run homers from Brandon Hines and Joey Henshaw, Army (6-3) scored four times in both the eighth and ninth innings. Thoma hit another two-run shot in the bottom of the eighth. Yet EIU could not overcome the Black Knights' big innings.

“The wind was blowing out and we got a couple pitches up in the zone,” EIU head coach Jim Schmitz said. “We knew Army was a very good team that played in the [NCAA] Regional last year and had a lot of guys back. We just had no energy, the emotion or passion wasn't there.

“We came back twice with home runs. But [Dillon] Roark came in to start the eighth and didn't do a good job. We're still trying to find that bridge to [closer Matt] Miller. No one seems to have multiple effective innings in close games. And we can't afford to have pitching problems down here with seven games in seven days.”

Thoma was 3-for-4, posting his second multi-homer game of his EIU career and first by a Panther this season. He also singled home a run in the sixth, the hit that made it a one-run game.

Zach Borenstein scored twice and picked up an RBI with a sacrifice fly. Shawn Ferguson and Brad Schweigert both registered a double in the loss.

Mike Martin (0-2) gave up five runs on six hits over a career-high six innings in his first start of the season. He had limited Army (6-3) to one hit through the first three innings when the Black Knights loaded the bases with a small-ball approach. A hit batter, base hit and bunt single loaded set the stage for Koenigsfield.

Mike Recchia and Rich Ruff were not charged with runs in their relief appearances, but Roark and Brian Hannig got knocked around for a combined seven runs in only 1 1/3 innings of relief.

Schmitz said it was Recchia's day to throw on the side and his inning of work played out perfectly, throwing 10 pitches while retiring all three batters he faced in the seventh.

Eastern continues its spring break trip Wednesday with a 10 a.m. (CDT) game against Akron. Troy Barton is slated to start on the mound for EIU.

Probable Pitching Matchups
Wednesday: Troy Barton (Fr, RHP) vs. Akron's Scott Foster (So, LHP)
Thursday: Mike Recchia (Jr, RHP) vs. IU's Jerrud Sabourin (Jr, LHP)
Friday: Mike Hoekstra (So, RHP) vs. OSU's Brett McKinney (Fr, RHP)