Box Score | Archived Audio | Archived Video
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Behind stellar pitching performances from junior lefty Aaron
Leasher and senior southpaw
Curtis Wilson, and some timely offense, the Morehead State baseball team locked down the No. 2 seed in next week's Ohio Valley Conference Tournament with a 4-1 victory at first-place Tennessee Tech Thursday night.
The sixth consecutive win for the Eagles against the Golden Eagles set up Morehead State for an 8 p.m. ET OVC Tournament first-round game next Wednesday against the winner of the game pitting the seventh and eighth seeds. Morehead State moved to 33-20 overall and 17-10 in the league. Tech fell to 36-18 overall and 22-6 in the conference.
"I thought it was one of the best games we have played all year and certainly the best we have played in a while," said head coach
Mike McGuire. "Aaron pitched about as good as he has in the last month, and it was nice to be able to utilize Curtis in that way. He pitched well too. We made a couple of defensive mistakes, but they pitched out of it. And I thought our offense had some timely hits, and some timely execution too on hit-and-runs. It feels good to lock in the number two seed, but we came here to win a series, and we now have a chance to do that tomorrow."
Leasher struck out eight, did not give up an earned run, and only was charged with two hits against him in six innings as he improved to 8-3. Leasher is now just two wins shy of the MSU single-season victory mark held by Harold Sergent in 1964. Wilson nailed down his second multi-inning save in the last three series as he gave up five hits but zero runs in the final three frames.
The Eagles grabbed a 1-0 lead in the third when sophomore leftfielder
Niko Hulsizer collected his nation's-best 74th RBI to score fellow sophomore
Trevor Snyder. Sophomore catcher
Hunter Fain made it 2-0 when he singled in junior first baseman
Tyler Niemann in the fourth.
A sac fly by the Golden Eagles cut the cushion in half in the fourth frame, but Niemann and Snyder pushed it back to 4-1 in the eighth. The left-handed Niemann pulled an RBI triple down the right field line, and Snyder singled to left field.
Snyder finished 3-for-4, while Niemann, senior centerfielder
Ryan Kent and junior third baseman
Eli Boggess had two hits each. Boggess upped the national lead in batting to .431.
The teams will battle again at 7 p.m. ET on Friday.
