Charleston, Ill. - The Eastern Kentucky baseball team (20-22, 11-8 Ohio Valley Conference) split a doubleheader at Eastern Illinois on Saturday afternoon. The Colonels pushed their win streak to 10 games by taking a 7-4 victory in the first contest, but dropped an 11-2 decision in the second installment.
Sophomore McKenzie Willoughby (6-2) improved to 5-0 in conference play by going 6.0 innings with four runs allowed. Freshman Blake Anderson and junior Greg Harper went the final three frames to secure the win, with Harper picking up his third save of the season.
Eastern took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when senior Derrick Bussell scored his first of three runs in the game off a sacrifice fly by senior Bryan Stevenson, who led the Colonels with a 3-for-4 effort and three RBI.
Freshman Lucas Waters put Eastern ahead 2-0 in the second with a run-scoring single. Leading 2-0, the Colonels pushed across three runs off four hits in the third to go on top 5-0. Stevenson plated the first run with a RBI single before junior Chris O'Dell followed with a RBI double (his eighth of the year). Senior Adam Visnic capped off EKU's scoring with a sacrifice bunt, which allowed senior Will Whisenant to score from third.
Stevenson plated his third run of the game in the fourth, when his single to left scored Bussell. Willoughby held the Panthers in check through the first four innings, before EIU scratched across a run in the fifth courtesy of a RBI single from Erik Huber.
After a scoreless sixth, the Panthers came to life in the seventh as Willoughby surrendered four-consecutive singles before being relieved by Anderson. With the bases loaded and no outs, Anderson took the mound and issued a bases-loaded walk to Ryan Campbell. EIU scored one more run in the frame off a sacrifice fly, but Anderson worked his way out of the inning with EKU's lead intact, 6-4.
With their lead down to two runs, Visnic gave Eastern an insurance run in the eighth, driving in his second run of the day with a single to center (scoring sophomore Tony Wells).
The Panthers went quietly over the next two frames, with Harper going the final 1.1 innings to register his team-leading third save.
It was a different story altogether in the second game, as EIU built a 7-0 lead after three innings and never looked back. The Panthers manufactured six runs in the third, capped off by a two-run single from Jon Hickey.
Freshman starter Shane Zegarac dropped to 2-4 on the year after allowing six runs over 2.1 innings. Sophomore Casey Howard went the final 3.2 frames for Eastern, allowing five runs to the Panthers (four earned).
EKU managed just two runs off Brian Long (1-2), who went the full 7.0 innings with five strikeouts and six hits allowed.
Freshman Aaron Landis and Whisenant drove in the Colonels only runs in the loss. Landis plated junior Brett Bolger with a RBI groundout in the fourth, while Whisenant scored sophomore Shawn Flora with a RBI double in the sixth. Stevenson led Eastern with a 2-for-3 effort at the plate, including his eighth double of the year.
The two teams will close out the series with the third and final game tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. A win for the Colonels would give them their fourth OVC series of the season.
