PEORIA, Ill. – The University of Evansville baseball team completed a three-game Missouri Valley Conference series sweep of the Bradley Braves on Sunday afternoon with a 7-2 victory at Dozer Park in Peoria, Illinois.
“This whole weekend started on the mound for us,” said UE head coach Wes Carroll. “I thought that we got great starting pitching in all three games, and our bullpen was lights out this weekend.
“Today, Shane Harris started a little slow, but after the first inning, he was electric and really did a great job of keeping them off-balance. Then, I thought that what we got out of Drew Fieger and Jakob Meyer out of the bullpen today was really special. Overall, I was proud of the effort today, and hopefully, we can keep rolling this week with a very big week against Purdue and Missouri State.”
Evansville gave starter Shane Harris a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, as graduate first baseman Chase Hug hit a high pop up to left that the Bradley left fielder lost in the sun and had go in and out of his mitt for a run-scoring error. Bradley would scratch across single runs in the first and second innings against Harris to take its only lead of the weekend after two innings, but that lead was short-lived.
Evansville scored two runs in the third inning to take a 3-2 lead on a run-scoring wild pitch and a sacrifice fly by freshman second baseman Brodie Peart. Peart then added a two-run single in the fifth inning to push the lead to 5-2, before senior shortstop Simon Scherry added a sacrifice fly in the frame to give Harris a four-run advantage. Graduate third baseman Brent Widder capped the scoring with an RBI ground out in the seventh inning.
Meanwhile, Harris was nearly untouchable after the second inning, as he allowed just a single and a walk after the second. In fact, at one point, he retired 11-straight Bradley batters in order. Overall, Harris (4-4) earned the victory by scattering two runs on six hits in 6.0 innings of work while striking out six. Fieger then tossed two scoreless innings, allowing only one base hit, while Meyer worked a perfect ninth inning with two strikeouts.
Peart drove in three runs to help lead the UE offense, while junior outfielder Harrison Taubert and senior outfielder Kip Fougerousse both had two-hit days. Fougerousse roped a pair of doubles for UE, while Taubert added a double as well.
With the victory, Evansville extended its winning streak to eight-straight games, while improving to 22-17 overall and 10-5 in the MVC. UE has now had eight-game winning streaks in each of the last four years for the first time in program history. Bradley, meanwhile, suffered its ninth-straight defeat while falling to 10-27 overall and 4-11 in the MVC.
The Purple Aces will wrap up its current five-game road trip on Tuesday night, as UE will travel to West Lafayette, Indiana to face the Purdue Boilermakers. First-pitch is set for 5 p.m. central time and Tuesday’s game can be heard live in the Tri-State area on 107.1 FM-WJPS and seen live on the Big Ten Network-Plus streaming service.
