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MARION, Ill. - Eastern Illinois baseball (35-19, 13-11 OVC) suffered its first loss of the Ohio Valley Conference Championships on Thursday after a walk-off win by No. 1 seed Morehead State. EIU lost by a final score of 2-1 while posting only five hits.

Starting pitcher Nick Laxner had his best outing of the season in a one run loss after throwing the first 7.2 innings for the Panthers. He allowed nine hits and just a single run and ended with a no decision. Colton Coca (3-3) suffered the loss for Eastern in relief of Laxner.

Morehead State's starting pitcher Luke Helton went 7.0 innings allowing just four hits and one unearned run and tossed four strikeouts. Matt Bettio (3-0) picked up the win in relief allowing just one hit over the final two innings.

The Panthers offense produced only five hits in the loss including a double by center fielder Lincoln Riley to leadoff the game. EIU stranded six runners throughout the game.

QUICK STATS
Nick Laxner: 7.2 IP, 9 H, R, 2 K
Colton Coca: L (3-3), 3 H, R
Lincoln Riley: 1-4, 2B
Kolten Poorman: 1-4, R

EIU looked to have the hot bats early on with a leadoff double in the first inning by Riley, but Helton settled in by striking out two in the inning. Laxner allowed a single hit through the first two innings of work.

The Eagles had room to work in the third inning with runners on first and second with no outs, but Laxner and the Panther defense continued to defend and got out of the inning with no damage.

Eastern Illinois would do the same thing as the Eagles and put two runners on with no outs, but failed to bring the runners home with three straight groundouts to end the top of the fourth. Laxner got out of a runner of third bunt situation in the fourth to keep the scoreless effort.

The fifth inning saw the first run of the ballgame with an RBI single by Roman Kuntz off of Laxner. It was of four hits by Kuntz in the game. Ryan Grabosch, also had three hits in the game, scored on the play.
 
EIU would not be down for long as they scored a run in the top of the sixth after Kolten Poorman reached on an error to begin the inning. After being moved over to third he would score on a wild pitch to tie the game at 1-1. Laxner would go three up, three down in the sixth.

Catcher Grant Lashure caught an Eagle stealing in the seventh inning to give EIU momentum heading into the eighth inning. The Eagles also threathen in the eighth but Coca got the final out with runners at second and third.

The Panthers looked as if they were going to take the lead in the ninth after one swing of the bat by Cole Gober. He hit a towering shot to left field, but was caught right at the fence to keep EIU off the board.

Morehead State would then walk off the ball game with an RBI single by Kuntz with two outs to give EIU their first loss of the tournament. Eastern scored one run on five hits while MSU scored two runs on 12 hits.

EIU will play the loser of Game Six in Marion, Ill. between No. 2 seed Little Rock and the No. 6 seed Tennessee Tech at 7:00 p.m. CT tonight. For more updates go to eiupanthers.com.