Belmont baseball team hangs on for win over Southeast Missouri State

The usual sense of frustration following a close loss wasn't there for the Southeast Missouri State baseball team and coach Steve Bieser on Friday night.

Despite dropping a 4-3 decision to Belmont after loading the bases with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season champion Redhawks weren't overly upset, but rather accepted that they'd played pretty well and just didn't come out on top.

The Bruins (30-25, 16-13 OVC) clinched one of the six spots in the conference tournament with their victory at Capaha Field. Southeast, which already locked up the No. 1 seed with its third consecutive conference title, is 35-17 and 22-7 in the OVC after the loss in Game 2.

Southeast's Chris Osborne digs in for a home run in the fourth inning against Belmont at Capaha Field on Friday, May 20, 2016. Belmont won 4-3.LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com

"I thought this game was about as even as two teams could play back and forth," Bieser said. "Both of the starting pitchers were really good and made good pitches. We messed up a couple times in the strike zone and they hit the long ball on us a little bit more than we were able to. Our biggest problem was we just weren't disciplined enough to lay off the high fastball and were popping up way too much pitches."

The Redhawks, who finished with eight hits, popped out or fouled out in every inning but the seventh.

Five of Southeast's hits came in the final two innings.

Trailing 3-1 after 7 1/2, Scott Mitchell led off with a double and scored on a single to left by Andy Lack.

The Bruins pushed their lead back to two in the top of the ninth with an RBI double by Clay Payne off reliever Adam Pennington.

Garrett Gandolfo singled to start the bottom of the ninth and Mitchell, who went 2-for-4, hit a two-out single through the right side. They moved into scoring position on a wild pitch before Lees drew a walk to load the bases.

Lack recorded his second hit of the night when he sent a high chopper up the middle that the shortstop couldn't handle for an RBI single. Trevor Ezell grounded out to first to strand the bases loaded to end the game.

The Redhawks' only hit over the first six innings was a home run by Chris Osborne to lead off the bottom of the fourth. Osborne sent the first pitch he got out to left for his team-leading 15th home run that put the Redhawks up 1-0.

Southeast had a great scoring opportunity in the first when Ezell led off with a walk, but right fielder Tyler Fullerton made a diving catch in right-center to rob Gandolfo of a two-out RBI hit.

"That's a difference-maker. That play right there, that's a big-time play," Bieser said. "He's in the air laid out making the catch and still has to hit the ground. He got an excellent jump on that ball and he took a perfect angle at it to cut it down. I thought for sure when it first went off the bat that it was an extra base hit and would've resulted in a run. You start scoring early in the game like that and that can just kind of snowball, but they made a play, they got some momentum going right there."

Belmont's second hit of the game was a first-pitch home run to dead center by Clay Payne to start the fifth, tying things at 1.

Southeast's Trevor Ezell tags out Belmont baserunner Kyle Conger at second base in the fourth inning at Capaha Field on Friday, May 20, 2016. Belmont won 4-3.LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com

Hunter Holland followed with a double to left, was sacrificed to third and scored on a single by Alex Ward to give the Bruins a lead they wouldn't relinquish before the Redhawks turned one of their three inning-ending double plays. They also recorded one in the third and turned a 5-3 double play in the ninth. Lack, the third baseman, and the shortstop Boggetto, each came up with some nifty defensive plays in the infield as well.

"Really pleased with the defensive play tonight," Bieser said. "We turned three double plays in big situations and I thought we made every play that we needed to make out on the field today and just played really solid on the defensive side, so that's a positive."

Starter Clay Chandler retired Belmont in order in the sixth and seventh. He gave up a leadoff home run to left to Desi Ammons in the eighth before exiting. He dropped to 4-4 with the loss after allowing three earned runs on five hits. He didn't walk a batter and struck out four in seven innings.

Southeast pitcher Clay Chandler is congratulated on his way to the dugout for the bottom of the fourth inning against Belmont at Capaha Field on Friday, May 20, 2016. Belmont won 4-3.LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com

"Seeing Clay Chandler throw the ball better than he's thrown it over the last several outings, that's a huge positive for us," Bieser said, "and I think he's made some adjustments and definitely headed in the right direction."

Branden Boggetto hit a double open the seventh, but was stranded on third base.

The Redhawks were able to knock starter Tyler Vaughn out of the game with one out in the eighth, but stranded two more in the frame.

"He did a good job elevating his fastball against us. We didn't make an adjustment early enough," Lack said. "I felt like later on in the game we competed and started taking the higher fastball, but he threw well."

Vaughn took the win on the mound, improving to 7-3. He allowed two earned runs on four hits with a walk and four strikeouts in 7 1/3.

"I mean, we played a hell of a defense out there. We pitched pretty good, too," Gandolfo said. " ... We just didn't make the adjustments we needed to on the starting pitcher. He was elevating his fastball to some guys and they weren't laying off of it. That's pretty much it."

The series finale is set for 2 p.m. today. Southeast will recognize 11 seniors prior to the contest.

"It's baseball. Sometimes you come out and they have a good game and they beat you," Lack said. "But the big thing is to bounce back tomorrow and win the series and show them that we're the best team in conference."