Southeast Missouri State baseball team backs up title with comeback win on Saturday

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- It took waiting out a two-hour rain delay and 12 innings, but the Southeast Missouri State baseball backed up its Ohio Valley Conference regular-season title with another win over second-place and defending champion Tennessee Tech on Saturday.

The Redhawks defeated the Golden Eagles 9-8 in a 6 hour, 26 minute game in Cookeville, Tennessee, to improve to 33-16 overall and 23-6 in the OVC a day after claiming the program's second conference title. Tech dropped to 36-16 and 16-10 in conference play.

"It kind of puts the cherry on top because they're an outstanding baseball club. They always have been," Southeast pitcher Travis Hayes said. "You know, I think there's a lot of people who didn't expect us to do what we've done so far this year, and it was nice to come in against the best-hitting team in the country and compete with them and swing it right there with them -- outswing them today. I mean, I think winning today made it a whole lot better, but winning tomorrow will further that excitement even more."

Southeast took a 1-0 lead in the first following the two-hour rain delay. The Redhawks had runners on the corners with one out and left fielder Derek Gibson had two strikes on him before the delay.

Gibson hit a sacrifice fly when play resumed to drive in second baseman Jason Blum.

Tech tied it after a single, walk and an error in the bottom of the first and took a 4-1 lead when Brandon Thomasson crushed a three-run home run to center.

Southeast regained the lead in the bottom of the fifth. Gibson tripled and scored on a single from third baseman Andy Lennington. Lennington, who advanced to third after a balk and a wild pitch, scored after Tech reliever Stanton Taylor walked three consecutive batters, and then second Blum hit a two-RBI single to give Southeast a one-run lead.

"Today was extremely tough," Southeast coach Steve Bieser said. "They came out early, and that's what they want to do. They want to come out early and get some early runs so they can relax and play the game. Our guys just battled back from that."

That lead didn't last long against the top run-scoring and home-run-hitting team in the country.

The Golden Eagles got a two-run home run from third baseman Daniel Miles and center fielder Jake Rowland in the fifth and sixth inning, respectively, to take an 8-5 lead.

Gibson, who went 3 for 4 with two runs and four RBIs, hit a two-run homer in the eighth to pull the Redhawks within one run.

Lennington then sent closer Seth Lucio's first pitch into center field for a single. Two wild pitches advanced him to third and he scored on a Dalton Hewitt sac fly to tie it.

In the 12th, center fielder Cole Bieser tripled with one out and Tech intentionally walked Tellor and brought in left-handed pitcher Vann Boyce to face Gibson.

Gibson sent a 3-1 pitch to center for a sac fly that plated Bieser for the winning run.

An error by Gibson in the bottom of the inning and a walk put runners on the corners with one out but a 1-6-3 double play secured the series win for Southeast.

Hayes, who was expected to start today's game, came in in relief in the bottom of the ninth and pitched four scoreless innings to improve to 8-1. He allowed one hit, walked two batters and struck out three.

"From the get-go I felt like I was able to locate my fastball really well and that's what I did, and it was pretty successful," Hayes said. "I mean, they're the best offense in the country, so when you miss they hit it hard. Even in my first inning, the lineout to center was a really hard hit ball because I missed by six inches.

"I was confident just because we have a game plan and we'd been executing that game plan all day, and the times that we executed it, it worked, and the times we didn't, they hit it out of the park. We knew coming in that if we made good pitches that we would be fine, and if we didn't we wouldn't be fine. Made some good pitches, and the couple that I missed they just happened to hit right at people, so it worked out well."

Christian Hull will start for Southeast in today's game, which starts at 1 p.m. at Bush Stadium in Cookeville, Tennessee. Hull's last start was on March 1 at Memphis and he's made 17 appearances in relief since then.

"We're going to start Christian and then we'll figure out where we go from there," Bieser said. "We've got a lot of guys in the bullpen that haven't thrown in a while that we need to throw and we've got an opportunity," Bieser said. "I mean, obviously we want to go win a ballgame, but we've got an opportunity to throw those guys and get them the work that they need so that they can be ready for the tournament as well."