ST. CHARLES, Mo. – The Eastern Illinois baseball team (18-32, 11-14 OVC) took an important step toward the postseason with a 6-5 victory over Lindenwood (16-36, 9-16 OVC) on Friday. After relinquishing a late 5-0 lead, the Panthers stayed the course and won the game in extra innings.

The Panthers offense exploded out of the gates with a Trenton Pallas three-run homer to take an early lead. It was Pallas' fourth long ball of the month.

Eastern tacked on another run in the fourth with a Cade Zalewski sacrifice fly before a Lucas Loos lead-off home run in the sixth extended the lead to 5-0.

After six and two-thirds scoreless innings, the Lions found their way into the scoring column with a James Jett solo home run in the bottom of the seventh. It was only the third hit Casey Perrenoud had surrendered all game.

Through seven complete innings, Perrenoud gave up just one run on four hits with six strikeouts.

However, things quickly unraveled for the Panthers after Perrenoud exited the contest.

With two outs and the bases loaded in the eighth, Bryson Arnette flipped the game on its head with a grand slam to left field, which tied the score at 5-5 entering the final regulation frame.  

After a scoreless ninth inning the game went into extras, and after loading the bases again in the bottom of the tenth with one out, the Lions looked primed for a walk-off.

However, Colton Coca was inserted into the game and got back-to-back pop outs to work EIU out of the jam and extend the game.

Now with a second breath, the EIU offense was able to load the bases themselves in the 11th, and with two outs Danny Infante was hit by a pitch to bring home the go-ahead run.

Coca took things from there, recording the final three outs in the bottom of the 11th to secure the 6-5 victory for EIU.

Coca was credited with the win (3-3) while Aaron Jungers (1-3) was designated the loss.

Trenton Pallas was the only Panther to record more than one hit with a 2-4 outing that included three RBI and a pair of runs scored.

Game two of this weekend's series is scheduled for Saturday at 5:00 p.m.