EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - Eastern Illinois baseball (15-12, 1-5 OVC) dropped Saturday's game at SIUE (19-11, 5-4 OVC) by a final score of 5-2. EIU went winless on the weekend during their first true road Ohio Valley Conference series.
Logan Eickhoff had his second multi-hit game of the series after going 3-4 with two RBI and a double for the Panthers.
Nicholas Rucker also had three hits while
Lincoln Riley added two for himself.
Starting pitcher
Blake Malatestinic (L, 2-3) earned the loss for EIU after throwing in 6.0 innings and allowing four runs (two earned). He also tossed six strikeouts. Garrett Helsel (3-0) earned his third win of the season for SIUE.
QUICK STATS
Logan Eickhoff: 3-4, 2 RBI, 2B
Nicholas Rucker: 3-4
Lincoln Riley: 2-4, HBP
Blake Malatestinic: L (2-3), 6.0 IP, 4 R, 2 ER, 6 K
Ryan Ignoffo: 2.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 4 K
Malatestinic settled into the game after allowing just one base runner in the first two innings. SIUE would get on the board in the third after Logan Smith reached on an error and would later score on a wild pitch.
The Panthers would tie the game in the top of the fourth after Eickhoff delivered a single to third base to score Grant Lahsure. EIU would leave two runners on to close out the fourth.
After a scoreless fifth inning, Eastern would take their first lead of the afternoon with an RBI double by Eickhoff to bring home
Ryan Ignoffo and bring the score to 2-1. SIUE's Kyle Ratliff would tie the game later in the sixth with a sac bunt RBI.
The Cougars took over the game in the seventh with a Josh Ohl home run to leadoff the inning. Brady Bunten would then bring home another run before SIUE got their third run of the inning with an Avery Owusu-Asiedu RBI groundout to bring the score of 5-2.
The Panthers only had one base runner in the final two innings to close out the game. EIU scored two runs on the nine hits with two errors. SIUE scored five runs on seven hits.
Eastern Illinois will be back in action next week with five games including four home games. EIU will have a home weekend OVC series against Little Rock starting on Friday, April 14 at 3:00 p.m.
