Eagles bounce back to stun Indians

After being pummeled by Southeast Missouri State University in Saturday's doubleheader, it would have been understandable if Morehead State's players showed up at Capaha Field Sunday hanging their heads.

Instead, the Eagles showed plenty of resiliency -- and as a result, the Indians have been eliminated from contention for the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season championship.

MSU's stunning 7-5 victory in front of nearly 800 fans at Southeast's final home game of the season came on the heels of Saturday's dismal showing by the Eagles, who suffered 11-4 and 22-8 defeats.

"I'm really proud of our guys, after what happened yesterday," MSU coach John Jarnagin said. "I think SEMO is really good, but we might have caught them just a little sluggish. We might have benefited from what they did to us yesterday."

The Indians, the defending OVC regular-season and tournament champions, fell to 27-18 overall and 11-6 in league play as they remained in third place, behind Tennessee Tech (12-4) and Austin Peay (12-4-1).

Southeast has one OVC series remaining, Friday and Saturday at Murray State. But even if the Indians win all three games and finish 14-6, since Austin Peay and Tennessee Tech close out their schedules against each other, one of those squads is mathematically guaranteed of finishing ahead of Southeast by at least percentage points.

"It's disappointing, and it's disappointing for the seniors to lose their final home game," Southeast coach Mark Hogan said. "But you have to give Morehead State credit. They showed a lot of mental toughness, after what happened yesterday. I was impressed with them."

The Eagles (15-29, 6-12) remained in seventh place in the eight-team OVC but kept their hopes alive of qualifying for the six-team conference tournament.

"This is huge for us. Now we have a real shot to get in the tournament," Jarnagin said.

It's not like the Indians didn't have their chances as they banged out 13 hits and put together plenty of big scoring chances, but Southeast stranded 11 runners.

"We didn't play bad," Hogan said. "We had no errors and we had plenty of opportunities. The 11 men we left on base is the big thing."

And no runners stranded were more glaring for the Indians than in the bottom of the ninth inning. Trailing 7-5, they loaded the based with nobody out and appeared poised to pull off a dramatic comeback victory.

Brian Hopkins led off the ninth with a single against Casey Campbell, MSU's third pitcher of the day. Justin Christian walked and cleanup batter Zach Borowiak was hit by a pitch to load the bases, although in retrospect that might have been a bad break for Southeast because Borowiak is the Indians' second-leading hitter at .377.

Tristen McDonald popped to first base for the initial out. Seth Moulton then got ahead in the count 3-0 but Campbell came back to throw two called strikes and Moulton proceeded to pop foul to the catcher for the second out.

With his confidence flowing, Campbell -- primarily a starter who was 1-8 with an earned-run average of 8.12 entering the contest -- threw three straight strikes to Dave Lawson, who never swung at a pitch as he was caught looking to end the contest.

"I just knew I had to keep my composure, that I was out there to do a job," Campbell said. "After I fell behind 3-0, getting a couple of strikes under me definitely helped me. This is a huge win for us."

Said Hogan, "I hated Zach getting hit. You wanted him to be able to swing the bat. But Campbell did a super job. You have to give him credit. He could have fallen apart after we loaded the bases."

MSU also got a strong pitching performance from starter Donnie Spencer (3-1), a freshman who notched his second straight OVC win with seven gritty innings. He allowed 12 hits and five runs, with three strikeouts and three walks.

"Their young kid pitched a good game," Hogan said.

Southeast starter Ryan Forsyth suffered his second straight loss as he struggled early and never made it out of the Eagles' four-run third inning. Forsyth (4-2) allowed six hits and five runs, with five strikeouts and two walks.

Three strong relief performances followed to allow the Indians a chance at battling back from an early 5-0 deficit.

Stan Skakalski allowed four hits and two runs in 3 1/3 innings while James Beever gave up two hits in 1 2/3 scoreless innings and Jon Nourie allowed no hits in 1 2/3 scoreless frames.

"They kept us in the game and gave us a chance to come back," Hogan said.

Hopkins continued his hot hitting by going 3-for-5, including a double and his OVC-leading 18th home run of the season, which is just three off the school record. Hopkins, who has an amazing 16 homers in his last 22 games, increased his team-high batting average to .424.

Christian -- Southeast's third-leading batter at .369 -- added two hits, as did both Gary Gilbert and Seth Moulton. Gilbert had two RBIs.

MSU, which had 12 hits, was led by Brandon Baarstad, Kevin Matuszek, Lance Seasor and Bryan Ingram with two apiece. Seasor and Matt Morris both homered.

The Eagles jumped on top with a run in the second inning, then went ahead 5-0 in the third, the big blow being a three-run homer by Morris.

Hopkins' two-run homer in the bottom of the third made it 5-2 and Eric Hoffman's RBI double in the fourth sliced the deficit to 5-3.

Seasor's solo homer in the fifth put MSU on top 6-3 and the Eagles made it 7-3 in the sixth. Gilbert's two-run single in the bottom of the sixth pulled the Indians to within 7-5 but there was no more scoring -- thanks in large part to Campbell's ninth-inning heroics.