MOBILE, Ala.- University of Southern Indiana Baseball brought the bats on Saturday but couldn’t avoid the big innings defensively. The Screaming Eagles fell short the University of North Alabama, 13-7, Saturday afternoon in Mobile, Alabama.
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Junior Carson Seeman (Auburn, California) worked his way out of trouble in the first two frames leaving two Lion runners on the base paths in back-to-back innings.
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The Eagles pushed across two runs in the first off an RBI sacrifice fly from senior Lane Crowden (Jackson, Missouri) after the first three batters reached base. Freshman Cameron Boyd (Villa Hills, Kentucky) took one for the team with a bases loaded hit by pitch to bring in another run and put the Eagles up by two after the first.
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Junior Terrick Thompson-Allen (Sioux City, Iowa) singled in junior Joe Ricchio (Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin) in the third to extend the lead to three. However, the USI pitching staff started to falter giving up four runs in back-to-back innings in the fourth and fifth. The Eagles countered in the bottom of the fifth after senior Ren Tachioka (Saitama, Japan) and sophomore Caleb Niehaus (Newburgh, Indiana) delivered RBIs to cut the deficit to 8-5.
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The Eagles couldn’t avoid the big inning on defense as the Lions tagged three more runs in the top of the sixth. Senior Tucker Ebest (Austin, Texas) and Crowden both singled and scored in the bottom of the eighth to bring the Eagles within five. Pitching and defense proved to be the demise for the Eagles today, resulting in a 13-7 loss.
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Tachioka led the Eagles offensively with three hits. Neihaus, Ebest, and Thompson-Allen collected two hits each.
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