CHARLESTON, Ill. – In their second game against Southeast Missouri (11-13, 2-0 OVC), Eastern Illinois (5-15, 0-2 OVC) had a tough time quieting the Redhawk bats in a 21-4 defeat on Saturday afternoon. The Panthers once again fell into an early hole and were unable to keep up with SEMO's red-hot offense.Â
Brooks Kettering set the tone with a lead-off inside the park home run in the top of the first before a Ty Stauss two-run homer in the same inning quickly put SEMO up 3-0.
The Panthers responded with a
Kolten Poorman RBI groundout that plated
Dylan Drumke, while Drumke picked up an RBI of his own in the second inning to make the score 3-2.
However, the Redhawks put together a massive inning in the third, as they brought in six runs to open up a comfortable seven-run advantage. All of the inning's runs were unearned, as two fielding errors prevented the Panthers from getting out of the inning damage free.
In the fifth, SEMO scored five runs on three homers to make EIU's path back into the game even more difficult.
In the bottom of the fourth,
Dylan Drumke kept his homestand rampage going with an RBI double that brought home
Luke Melton.
Cole Gober would bring in the Panthers' fourth run with an RBI single in the sixth inning, but that was all the offense EIU could muster on the day.
Bryce Riggs (1-1) suffered the loss for Eastern while Tommy Windt (3-2) picked up the win.
After collecting 11 extra-base hits on Friday, the Panthers only recorded nine total hits on Saturday.
Dylan Drumke continued to lead the EIU offense with a 2-2, 2 RBI outing.
The series finale is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.Â
