DAYTON, Ohio -Â Eastern Illinois baseball (6-4, 0-0 OVC) picked up their sixth win of the season in the series finale against Dayton (2-8, 0-0 A10) with a 9-6 victory against the Flyers. EIU and Dayton split their four-game series with EIU taking the last two games.
Lincoln Riley,
Cole Gober and
Cade Zalewski all had home runs in the win including the grand slam hit by Zalewski in the seventh inning to give EIU a five run cushion. Zalewski had a home run in all four games of the series.
Eastern Illinois'
Colton Coca (1-0) picked up his first ever win in an EIU uniform after throwing 2.2 inning of relief. He allowed one run on three hits while striking out a team high three Flyers. Dayton's Ryan Packard (0-2) suffers the loss after throwing in 6.1 innings and allowing five runs.
QUICK STATS
Cade Zalewski: 1-4, HR, 4 RBI, R
Cole Gober: 1-3, HR, 3 RBI, 2 R, 2 BB
Chris Worcester: 2-3, 2B, R, BB, HBP
Nick Laxner: 2.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, BB, K
Colton Coca: W (1-0), 2.2 IP, 3 H, R, BB, 3 K
Dayton got on the board early in game four with two runs in the first inning off of starting pitcher
Nick Laxner. Marcos Pujols doubled off of Laxner for the first run and he would later score off an error by
Nicholas Rucker at first.
Riley would tie the ball game in the third inning with a two-run home run, his first of the season. Worcester would also add a double in the third but would be left stranding with the game tied. Ben Jones would tack on a run for the Flyers with a solo home run that would end Laxner's day.
Jack Potteiger would enter the game for Eastern and would allow Dayton's second home run of the afternoon after a Paxton Tomani solo HR. Coca took over for Potteiger in the fifth.Â
Eastern Illinois finally got back on the scoreboard with their second home run of the day. Gober added to his impressive season with his fifth HR, this one being a two-run shot to score
Ryan Ignoffo.Â
The seventh inning proved enough for the Panthers to take control of the game. After singles by
Lucas DiLuca and Worcester, Ignoffo was walked to load the bases. Zalewski would then hit his first grand slam of his career for the Panthers while also continuing his streak of four straight games with a HR. EIU would lead 9-4.
Carlos Castillo added a sac fly RBI in the bottom of the inning to bring Dayton to within four. After a scoreless eighth, Dayton put the pressure on the Panthers and closer
Zane Robbins. Robbins would give up an RBI single to cut the lead to three and had runners on the corners.
With no outs, Robbins would battle back with two strikeouts and a groundout to end the game at 9-6.
The Panthers scored nine runs on eight hits with one errors while Dayton scored six runs on 14 hits with one error. EIU and Dayton split the series 2-2.
Eastern Illinois baseball will be back in action next weekend starting on Friday, March 10 vs. Arkansas State.
