HAMMOND, La. – Eastern Illinois baseball loaded the bases and brought the potential go-ahead run to the plate in the ninth inning but couldn’t cash in and dropped its season opener against Southeastern Louisiana, 4-1, Friday evening at Alumni Field.
Jordan Tokarz ignited the ninth-inning rally when he reached on an infield single.
Zach Skidmore followed with a double over the right fielder’s head, and the subsequent walk to
Tristan Facer loaded the bases. But SELU relief pitcher Chris Cappo got
Jordan Kreke to ground into a game-ending, 6-4-3 double play.
Richie Derbak knocked in EIU’s lone run of the game with a single in the second. Facer, who opened the inning with a walk, scored on the play.
Eastern pitchers hit five batters on the night, while the Panther defense also committed three errors.
“We knew their pitcher was very good, so it figured to be a low-scoring game,” EIU head coach Jim Schmitz said, “The errors are going to happen, but it’s still really disappointing because we gave them the game. We battled well and played hard, but this is a good team. We have to do a better job with the freebies. A lot of it just had to do with us being outside finally. Hopefully we’ll be sharper tomorrow.”
Southeastern Louisiana starter Wade Miley was ranked the second-best pitcher in the Southland Conference by Collegebaseballinsider.com earlier this month. He was selected in the 20th round of the MLB First-Year Player Draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays coming out of high school. Miley struck out seven over seven innings.
Facer surrendered just one run on one hit while striking out four over four innings in his EIU debut on the mound.
Eastern actually enjoyed a 7-4 advantage in hits. But Southeastern Louisiana broke a 1-1 tie with a run in the sixth inning and then tacked on an additional insurance tally in each of the next two frames.
Tyler Brandon was charged with the loss in relief of Facer, who moved to designated hitter after giving way to the EIU bullpen. Brandon worked 2 1/3 innings and accounted for three of the five hit batsmen.
Ross Jeske finished off the game on the mound for Eastern.
Skidmore was the lone Panther to collect two hits. Kreke doubled with two down in the seventh, putting himself in scoring position as the potential tying run, but Miley struck out Derbak in a lefty-lefty match-up.
The Panthers also ran themselves out of a potential first-inning rally after
Brett Nommensen was picked off first base following a game-opening bunt single and Skidmore was later caught stealing.
Game two of the series is set for 3 p.m. Saturday. Freshman right-hander
Josh Mueller is slated to make his collegiate debut on the mound for the Panthers.
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Ben Turner, Asst. SID