CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Eastern Illinois baseball (32-18, 12-11 OVC) secure their final Ohio Valley Conference series win of the season with a 7-2 victory over Southeast Missouri (26-28, 14-9 OVC) on Friday. EIU locks up the No. 5 seed in the OVC Tournament next week.
Three different Panthers earn multiple hits in the win including three from left fielder
Cole Gober who had his second triple in as many games.
Logan Eickhoff and
Grant Lashure both had two hits and two RBI for EIU.
Starting pitcher
Tyler Conklin (W, 7-5) picked up the win for the Panthers after throwing in 6.0 innings allowing just three hits and no runs with two strikeouts.
Zane Robbins (S, 4) pitched the final 2.2 innings for EIU to secure the win.
QUICK STATS
Cole Gober: 3-4, 3 R, RBI, 2B, 3B
Logan Eickhoff: 2-4, 2 RBI, 2 R, 3B
Tyler Conklin: W (7-5), 6.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 K
Zane Robbins: S (4), 2.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 4 K
Continuing their success in the first inning, Kolten Poorman delivered the first run of the game with an RBI single to bring home Ryan Ignoffo for his team leading 57th run scored.
After loading the bases with two outs in the bottom of the first, Conklin was able to get out of the jam. He allowed just one hit through the first three innings of play.
Eastern Illinois added to their lead with two more runs in the fourth inning to go up 3-0. After a double by Gober, Eickhoff added his second triple of the season to score one. Lashure then grounded out to score Eickhoff and put EIU up 3-0.
Despite giving up two doubles in the bottom of the inning, Conklin got out of the jam with runners at second and third to preserve the lead. Conklin retired seven straight Redhawks to end his performance.
With the bases loaded for EIU in the seventh, Southeast Missouri was able to get out of the jam to keep the lead at three.Â
Ignoffo came into pitch in the seventh inning and allowed two runs to cut the lead to one run. Robbins inherited the bases loaded and got out of the jam with an inning ending groundout.
The eighth saw the Panther regain their three-run lead. Gober led off with his second straight game with a triple. He was followed by an RBI single by Eickhoff and a safety squeeze bunt by Lucas DiLuca to put EIU on top 5-2.
Robbins had a clean bottom of the eighth inning which led to two more runs by EIU in the ninth with two outs. Gober and Lashure both had RBI singles to extend the lead to five before Robbins ended the game with two strikeouts.
EIU scored seven runs on 11 hits with one error. SEMO scored two runs on six hits with two errors. Game three of the final OVC series will be tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. CT. For more updates go to eiupanthers.com.
