Box Score I Play-by-Play

RICHMOND, Ky. – Senior right-hander Matt Harris tossed a complete gem, allowing just one run on four hits, to lead the Eastern Kentucky University baseball team to a convincing 8-1 win over visiting SIUE in game one of this weekend’s Ohio Valley Conference series at Turkey Hughes Field.

It was Harris’s first-career complete game and EKU’s second complete game of the season, and it provided the suddenly surging Colonels with their third consecutive win.

With the win, EKU improves to 10-15 (2-2 OVC), while the loss drops SIUE to 13-12 (2-2 OVC).

Harris (3-3) surrendered a solo home run to Zach Hawkins in the top of the second inning, but then settled into a groove and only seemed to get stronger as the game progressed, retiring 11 of the final 12 batters he faced. He finished the game with five strikeouts and only two walks.

Right-hander Travis Felax (4-2) took the loss for SIUE as he pitched 6.1 innings and allowed five runs on seven hits.

With Harris dealing from the mound, the EKU offense, which plated 10 runs in a midweek contest with Marshall, continued to thrive, pounding out five extra base hits to take a commanding lead and put the game away early.

After Hawkins’s home run gave the Cougars an early 1-0 lead, sophomore Bryan Soloman led off the bottom of the second with his fourth home run on the year, a solo shot to left field that tied the game. Two batters later, senior #A.J. Jamison# smacked his fourth home run of the year, another solo shot that just cleared the wall in right field. The next batter, senior Dustin Dunlop, who was seeing his first action since a hand injury that occurred nearly two weeks ago, ripped his team-leading third triple into left center, but he was left stranded at third.

An RBI double by senior Jacob Daniel in the bottom of the third scored junior Austin Grisham to extend the Colonels’ lead to 3-1. In the bottom of the fourth, the runs kept coming as Jamison plated senior Michael Garcia on a seeing-eye single to center and sophomore Sean Hagen scored Jamison on an RBI groundout to third base, making the score 5-1.

Felax subdued the EKU bats over the next two innings, but the Colonels got to the SIUE bullpen in the bottom of the seventh to put the game away. With one out in that inning, Grisham ripped an RBI base hit off Cougar reliever Brooks McDowell, scoring Hagen. Daniel then plated senior Richie Rodriguez with a sacrifice fly to center field and Soloman concluded the scoring for the day with a base hit to left field that pushed Grisham across and made it 8-1.

EKU and SIUE will play game two of this weekend’s series tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.