Metro East Sun

Four-Run Ninth Lifts Redhawks Over Cougars

 Southeast Missouri scored four times in the top of the ninth to down SIUE 8-4 Sunday in the rubber game of a three-game Ohio Valley Conference series at Simmons Baseball Complex.

SIUE dropped to 14-8 overall and 1-2 in the OVC. Southeast Missouri is 12-14 and 2-1 in the league.

Peyton Leeper singled with one out to drive in the game-winning run in the top of the ninth. After a hit batter, Josh Cameron connected on a three-run home run to right to make it 8-4.

"It was a disappointing loss," SIUE Head Coach Sean Lyons said. "We didn't get much going offensively early on. The guys hung in there and kept grinding away."

The Cougars scored four times in the bottom of the eighth inning to tie the score at 4-4. With SIUE trailing 4-1 going into the inning, Brennan Orf led off the frame with his fifth home run of the year. Brady Bunten followed with a double to the right field corner and then scored on a double off the wall in right by Ole Arntson. Kyle Ratliff drove home Arntson to tie the score 4-4.

"Eventually you get an opportunity and we got ours there in the eighth," Lyons said. "We did a great job to get some big hits to get back to even."

It was 1-1 when Brett Graber and Carlos Aranda homered as part of a three-run fifth inning to give SEMO the 4-1 lead.

SIUE reliever Tyler DeLong (2-1) suffered the loss despite a strong outing. DeLong struck out seven over 3.2 innings. He allowed two runs on two hits.

"Tyler has been great for us," Lyons said of his pitcher. "We asked him to get three-plus innings after closing out the win yesterday in game two. He's a guy we want to have the baseball. He gave us the opportunity to tie the score there in the eighth."

SEMO reliever Kyle Miller (1-1) allowed a run over two innings to earn the win.

Josh Ohl and Avery Owusu-Asiedu each had two hits for SIUE, which was outhit by Southeast Missouri 8-7.

"All three games could have gone either way," Lyons added. "That's just baseball. To come down in a close series with the score tied in the ninth, that tells you about the quality of both teams. We just didn't end up on the right side today."

SIUE plays at Saint Louis Tuesday before resuming OVC play at UT Martin with a weekend series.

Original source can be found here