BOX SCORE
MOREHEAD, Ky. - The good news for Morehead State baseball Friday was a big four-run inning in the fourth against Eastern Illinois. The bad news was that was the lone scoring inning for the host Eagles as they ended up on the short end of a 5-4 decision to the Panthers at Allen Field.
MSU fell to 26-15 overall and 11-7 in the Ohio Valley Conference as it fell just short of its first-ever sweep over EIU, which moved to 19-21 overall and 10-11 in the league.
After EIU scored a run in the third, Morehead State blasted back with four in the fourth. Junior third baseman
Dom Peroni connected on a go-ahead two-run single and junior right-fielder
Chase Sortor bombed a two-run homer to left field. However, EIU's Will Klein (1-0)Â proceeded to shut down the Eagle bats for three frames before closer
Alex Stephenson did the same for the final two innings to collect his fourth save.
"Credit EIU, they have a much improved team, but I thought we didn't have enough good at bats after we got the lead today," said head coach
Mike McGuire. "Instead we were passive. Playing three games again in a 24-hour window is tough on our guys and really any team, and you could see that with some of our at bats today."
MSU had nine hits but only two in the final five times at the plate.
EIU's Hunter Morris lifted a two-run homer over the short wall in right center-field to tie the game 4-4 in the seventh, and Jimmy Govern's single to center in the eighth plated the eventual winning run.
Senior shortstop
Reid Leonard had two more hits today to up his career total to 302 and move him into a tie with former SEMO star Kenton Parmley for fifth all-time in hits in OVC history. He was joined in the multi-hit club by senior left-fielder
Jake Hammon with two.
Junior starter
Jason Goe recorded six strikeouts in 6.1 innings before giving way to sophomore lefty
Cory Conway. He was saddled with the loss to fall to 0-1.
Morehead State is back in action Tuesday at Marshall. Game time is set for 3:30 p.m. ET.
