SIUE baseball drops 9-5 decision to Evansville

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – SIUE baseball dropped a 9-5 decision Wednesday at Evansville.

The Cougars fell to 8-14 overall. Evansville is 11-9.

We played very sloppy baseball tonight," SIUE Head Coach Sean Lyons said. "We gave away too many free bases. Walks, hit batters, allowing extra bases not the type of baseball needed to win games."

The second inning proved to be an eventful one for the Cougars.

SIUE banged out five hits in the top of the inning, scoring four times. Jackson Caley picked up his first career hit and RBI with a one-out double. Brady Bunten followed with a single to score Caley. Eric Giltz later collected a pair of RBIs with a two-out, two-run single to put the Cougars up 4-0.

"We had some really good at-bats early and we were able to jump out to an early lead," Lyons said.

In the bottom of the inning, the Aces loaded the bases on an error, a hit batter and a walk. Troy Beilsmith walked to force in a run to get Evansville on the board.

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Evansville shortstop Craig Shepherd followed and lined a ball to Brady Bunten at second. Bunten flipped to Jordan Ross at second base catching the runner off base. Ross then threw to first catching the runner there for a triple play.

UE added another run in the third when Craig Tanner homered and then plated three in the fourth inning to take a 5-4 lead. Nate Reeder drove home two in the inning for the Purple Aces.

SIUE's Peyton Cordova-Smith tied the score with an RBI-hit in the fifth.

Evansville took the lead for good with two runs in the sixth. Reeder added another RBI for the Aces with an infield hit. UE scored twice more, both with the help of wild pitches in the seventh and the eighth innings.

The Cougars used six pitchers. Ryan Byrd started and worked 3 1/3 innings and allowed five runs. He struck out four but walked seven. Cole Milam suffered the loss. He allowed two runs in 2/3 of an inning. He fell to 0-2.

Giltz, Cordova-Smith, Bunten and Jordan Ross each had two hits for the Cougars.

SIUE will return home to face Ohio Valley Conference foe Eastern Kentucky in a weekend series at Simmons Complex.

"We need to clean some things up before the weekend," Lyons said.

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