OVC tournament loss puts Southeast Missouri State baseball team in bind

Ohio Valley Conference Co-Pitcher of the Year Travis Hayes was the man for the job when No. 1 Southeast Missouri State was pitted against No. 2 Tennessee Tech and OVC All-Freshman pitcher Evan Frailex in the winner's bracket final of the OVC baseball tournament on Friday.

Both pitchers were exceptional but several strong defensive plays by Tech and a few untimely miscues by the Redhawks made all the difference.

The Golden Eagles advanced to the tournament championship with a 9-2 victory in a game that was much closer until the ninth inning.

The Redhawks will face No. 3 Jacksonville State at noon Saturday in an elimination game of the double-elimination tournament. The winner will advance to play Tech for in the championship round at 4 p.m. Saturday while the loser's season will come to an end.

If Southeast wins both games Saturday it would force a winner-take-all championship game at noon Sunday for the conference's automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.

"Travis Hayes should've had the same fate that Frailex had," Southeast coach Steve Bieser said. "You know, in the seventh inning it still should've been 0-0, but we just didn't play defense and Tech played outstanding defense. With [shortstop Dylan] Bosheers going in the hole and throwing out some of the fastest runners in the conference -- those are great plays. [Jason] Blum and [Cole] Bieser have not been thrown out on a backhand like that all season long and he was just phenomenal. Their corner outfielders coming in and make diving catches -- there was about five hits that they took away because they played outstanding defense. That was a difference in the game."

Hayes (8-2) pitched eight complete innings and allowed four runs, three earned, on seven hits while walking three. He struck out a season-high 11 batters.

Tech had a 3-2 lead going into the eighth inning, and Bieser decided to stick with his starter, who had thrown 120 pitches.

"At that point we had a chance to win this game and honestly, our bullpen has been struggling and Travis Hayes is a guy that this late in the year 130 pitches is nothing. I shouldn't say it's nothing, it is something, but they're capable of getting 130 pitches. And what I figured was he would get through that inning, and honestly, he's asking for it. He wants one more inning, he wants one more inning. I mean, he wanted another inning, but he wasn't getting that. I knew that he could go back out. He had enough left in the tank to compete and throw very well, and that's exactly what he did. He threw good and got us through that."

The Golden Eagles added a run in the inning. With a runner on second and two outs, catcher Jordan Hopkins worked a full count before sending a pitch to right center for an RBI triple.

"The bad pitch was just, it was just the wrong pitch to throw in that count with a base open, and I take credit for that. I had a hunch," Bieser said. "Travis is good at, whenever he's feeling it out there, of switching pitches if he feels something else is there. I signaled a call and he agreed with it. It just wasn't a very smart pitch in that count. That allowed them to get that 4-2, and now they've got the momentum going. That was hard for us to rebound from."

"I shouldn't have been hesitant or worried about walking him in that situation," Bieser added. "We just went with a fastball up. You're not verbally communicating there, and I'm sure when I gave him the fastball call he was thinking, 'OK, he doesn't want me to walk this guy,' and really it was something that he had just thrown a fastball by him up and away, and that's what I was hoping he would do, keep that same pitch. He got it down a little bit, over more of the middle of the plate. And I think just a lack of communication, really knowing where I wanted the location. Travis is very smart. I don't know if he was thinking along the same lines and just didn't execute it or what, but we could've thrown anything in that count with a base open and seen if he would chase. Then we would've had the matchup where we'd struck the guy out a couple times already. Other than us not making plays early in the game, that was a turning point late in the game like that to let them get that two-run lead again."

Hayes was relieved from the game before the start of the ninth inning, after throwing 135 pitches, and the Golden Eagles scored five runs on relievers Ryan Lenaburg and Perry Middleton in the final inning.

"Not let them hit it out of the ballpark," Hayes said sarcastically about his pregame strategy. "That's pretty much what you do against them because [Brandon] Thomasson, [Zach] Stephens, [Daniel] Miles, they all swing the hell out of it. The biggest thing was to get ahead. I neutralized those three pretty well all night because I was able to do that for the most part. Thomasson got a hold of one late in the ball game, but at the same time, he had seen so many different pitches that he was a little bit off the fastball that he didn't quite put it out. I mean, that's what you have to do with those guys. You saw at the end of the game when Lenaburg and Perry got behind, those guys are really good hitters and it doesn't matter how hard you throw or how good your offspeed is, if you're always behind with them they're just going to sit back and hammer fastballs, and that's what they did. They're really good hitters.

"That's usually what we do because we have really good hitters, too, but we didn't tonight and it was just one of those nights where the bats weren't there. And it sucks. Nothing we could really do about it, but I mean, it's just one of those nights where it happened. It's going to happen at some point, but it's unfortunate it happened tonight because it puts us in a bit of a tougher spot, but there's nothing we can do about it now and move on."

Tech scored three runs in the third. Hayes struck out the leadoff batter before designated hitter Tyler Brazelton doubled to left.

Lennington committed an error and then knocked down a ball hit hard down the third base line to keep Brazelton from scoring but loaded the bases.

Third baseman Daniel Miles drove home two runs on what was ruled an infield hit. Southeast shortstop Andy Lack got to the ball in time but it got past him and went into center.

Thomasson made it 3-0 with a base hit.

Southeast, which had just four hits in the game and had 14 batters in a row retired at one point, cut it to 3-2 in the seventh. Cole Bieser drew a leadoff walk and advanced to third on a single by OVC Player of the Year Matt Tellor. He scored on a sac fly by Derek Gibson.

Tellor then stole second and was driven in on a single up the middle from Dalton Hewitt.

Those were the only three hits Frailex allowed in the game. Seth Lucio relieved him to start the eighth and pitched two innings and gave up just one hit for his 10th save of the season.

"Frailex was very good and you've got to give him a lot of credit because he was mixing his changeup in really well," Bieser said. "He wasn't throwing a lot of fastballs and that's something that we were just impatient. I thought our hitters were a little passive, a little uptight and just felt a little pressure that they haven't felt all year for some reason. I think we learned a hard lesson tonight, that we can't come out and play any different because there's a lot on the line. I know they wanted to move into the championship game, but now we've just got a long road ahead of us."