MARTIN, Tenn. - Eastern Illinois baseball (12-5, 0-1 OVC) dropped their opening Ohio Valley Conference game to UT Martin (6-17, 1-0 OVC) by a final score of 9-5. The Panthers left 13 runners on base despite having 13 hits.
Cole Gober and
Joey Hagen claimed three hits in the game for EIU as
Chris Worcester (2),
Grant Lashure (1) and
Kolten Poorman (1) all had an RBI in the game. Eight different Panthers had a hit in the game, a season high.
Starting pitcher
Tyler Conklin (L, 2-2) suffered the loss after throwing in 1.1 innings and allowing six runs on four hits. Seth Petry (W, 2-2) earned the win for UT Martin after throwing the first five frames and allowing four runs.
QUICK STATS
Cole Gober: 3-5
Joey Hagen: 3-5, 2B, R
Chris Worcester: 1-5, 2 RBI
Tyler Conklin: L (2-2), 1.1 IP, 4 H, 6 R
Jackson Nichols: 3.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 3 K, BB
Eastern Illinois was the designated home team for the series after the weekend home stand was moved to UT Martin due to rain. The Skyhawks got on the board early off of Conklin in the first with two RBI from Will Smith and Blaze Bell. The Panthers would come back with one of their own after Petry loaded the bases and Lashure was walked for an RBI.Â
Hunter McLean for UTM would hit one of six doubles in the game for the Skyhawks to lead off a six run second inning. Zac Rice had a two RBI double followed by an RBI double by Caleb Hobson. He would later score on a wild pitch by
Jonathon Hanscom.
Despite being down 6-1 early, the Panthers would score two runs in the bottom half of the second after Worcester reached on a fielder's choice to score Hagen. DiLuca would also score on the play after a throwing error by the shortstop to cut the lead to 6-3.
Both teams would score a run in the third inning after UTM's Jonah Wichman hit a solo home run and EIU's Poorman singled into left field to score Nichols Rucker.
The scoring would slow down heading into the fourth inning as Hanscom entered the game following Conklin's exit in the second. The Skyhawks would score one run in the fifth and sixth inning off of Hanscom after a sac fly RBI by Wichman and a RBI single by Smith.
Eastern would score one final run in the seventh inning after Worcester reached on another fielder's choice and scored Poorman.
Nichols would throw the last three innings of the game only allowing four hits and one walk. Hanscom and Nichols both had three strikeouts in the game. EIU went one, two, three in the ninth with a final score of 5-9.
EIU scored five runs on 13 hits with no errors. UT Martin scored nine runs on 16 hits with three errors. The Panthers and Skyhawks will play a double header on Sunday starting at 12:00 p.m. CT. For more updates go to eiupanthers.com.
