SIUE Baseball Notches Fifth Consecutive Win

The game was scoreless through the first 2.5 innings, but the hot Cougar bats found their stride in the home half of the third inning. A double to right field advanced Drew Mize home to give the Cougars the early advantage. Connor Kiffer singled through the left side in the next at-bat to send Brett Johnson across the plate to double the lead. An ISU pitching change did not slow down SIUE, as a throwing error off a failed pickoff attempt sent Richie Well home, before Brady Bunten notched his first RBI of the contest to score Kiffer. The Cougars registered their first home run of the fixture one inning later, as Johnson powered the ball past the right-field wall for his single-season record-tying 15th home run of the season, increasing the SIUE lead to six. 

The Redbirds cut the SIUE lead back to four with a two-run shot of their own; however, the margin would not stand for long - a sacrifice fly from Nick Roes scored Bunten, before Brennan Orf scored on a wild pitch in the following at-bat. The second sacrifice fly of the inning came off the bat of Johnson, who scored Pierson to bring the Cougar lead to seven. Illinois State registered a home run in the visitor's half of the sixth inning, cutting the Cougar lead back down to five.

A five-run sixth inning followed, as Orf and Avery Owusu-Asiedu both notched RBIs to give SIUE an 11-4 lead. Nic Roes stepped up to the plate with two men on and one out and registered the first home run of his collegiate career to extend the Cougar lead to 10. The home run gave the Cougars their 69th home run of the season - tying them with the 1998 squad for the most home runs by a Cougar team in a single season. The Redbirds scored three more times, but SIUE's strong outing proved too much for the visitors and resulted in the 14-7 final score.

"A good midweek win," said SIUE Head Coach Sean Lyons. "It was good to see us offensively continue to put up good at-bats and make some hard contact and be able to get off to a fast start. We got a great start from Coby Rodgers - he's been getting better every outing. We needed him to give us a quality start tonight and he did, so really excited for him and the way he pitched tonight. We had several guys up and down the lineup provide some quality at-bats. It was good to see that out of the guys, and it's important for us now to turn our attention to the weekend, get a couple days of workouts in, and go from there."

The Cougars, which improve to 19-18 and remain at 6-6 in OVC play, will head to the Bluegrass State for a weekend series at Murray State. The Racers, also notching a mid-week win tonight with a 8-2 victory over Alabama A&M, enter the series at 22-18 overall and 7-8 in conference play.

"We just need to keep the momentum going from last weekend [vs. Austin Peay] and a good midweek win tonight," added Lyons. "Murray State is really playing well right now, so it should be a good weekend series."