Southeast baseball team drops first conference series

~ Southeast Baseball team suffers first OVC series loss after 6-1 loss to Morehead State

The Southeast Missouri State baseball team entered its three-game series against Morehead State with one of the top offenses in the Ohio Valley Conference -- and the 13th best team batting average in the country.

Morehead starting pitcher Matt Anderson kept the Redhawks' potent offense at bay on Saturday, allowing just three hits en route to a 6-1 defeat of Southeast at Capaha Field.

"He just, he went right at the zone with pitches that we thought we could hit and handle and we kind of went away from our approach," Southeast center fielder Cole Bieser said. "Usually we're a very patient team, and I think we just expanded our zone a little bit today and any time you'll do that you'll give a quality pitcher a lot of outs."

"I think we just came in, we were maybe pressing a little bit, we wanted to get our hits," he added. "We wanted to come out and try to make a statement on our home field. ... He made good pitchers' pitches that looked good in the box until you swing at them and then all of a sudden you've grounded out to the shortstop."

Southeast Missouri State players watch from the dugout in the ninth inning of the Redhawks' 6-1 loss to the Morehead State Eagles Saturday, March 22, at Capaha Field. (Adam Vogler)

Bieser, left fielder Clayton Evans and catcher Scott Mitchell recorded Southeast's three hits in the loss, which sealed the Redhawks' first series loss in OVC play after Friday's extra-inning loss to the Eagles.

The Redhawks got on the board first, scoring their lone run in the third inning.

Evans singled up the middle after Andy Lack drew a leadoff walk. Lack stole third and Evans stole second on separate pitches to Jason Blum, who grounded out.

Bieser grounded out to the shortstop, but scored Lack to give Southeast its only lead of the game.

Southeast's starting pitcher Ryan Lenaburg pitched five scoreless innings, but the first three Eagles batters singled to load the bases with no outs in the top of the sixth.

Morehead designated hitter Bobby Burns reached on a fielder's choice, but Southeast got the lead runner at home.

A Tyler Bigler RBI single tied the game and then Lenaburg hit Jeff Birkofer with a pitch to score the go-ahead run.

The Eagles added to their lead in the seventh. With two outs and two runners on, Burns singled up the middle, scoring Brandon Rawe. Bieser overran the ball in center, allowing Burns to advance to third on the error and scored Chris Robinson to make it 4-1.

Birkofer led off the eighth with a double to left field, and relief pitcher Brady Wright walked back-to-back batters to load the bases with one out.

He hit Kane Sweeney with a pitch to score a run before Perry Middleton relieved him and a sac fly scored the final run of the game.

Morehead State had 11 hits in the game.

"We've got to go after the guys in their zone, and this is a very tough club to kind of start doing that because they're first-pitch swingers," Southeast coach Steve Bieser said. "They're swinging at anything that's close on the first or second pitch, and if you're not really locating a good pitch down in the zone with the first pitch, they're going to hit the first pitch, and they don't go away from that. This is a club that can be very streaky if guys are making good first pitches, and I thought Ryan did that pretty early in the game. He was making some good first pitches and we were getting our outs, but they don't back out of their approach. They continue to stay aggressive and if you get a little tired and you get a little relaxed then they're going to hurt you, and that's what they've done all series."

Lenaburg (2-2) was credited with the loss. He allowed four runs on 10 hits in 6 2/3 innings of work. He had all of Southeast's four strikeouts, walked a batter and hit two with a pitch.

Anderson (1-3) picked up his first win of the season. He allowed three hits and had eight strikeouts and walked only two batters in 7 2/3 innings of work.

Southeast designated hitter Derek Gibson went 0 for 4 to snap his 14-game hitting streak and a 17-game on base streak.

The Redhawks will try to keep the Eagles (11-11, 4-4 OVC) from sweeping the series when they play Game 3 at 1 p.m. today at Capaha Field.

Southeast has lost three games in a row beginning with its loss to Saint Louis on Tuesday, which snapped a seven-game winning streak.

"We've been on the good side of stuff and right now we're on the bad side of stuff, so I think it's going to show what kind of team we really are," Evans said. "I know that we're that team that's going to come out and we're going to execute our plan, and we're going to get it done and salvage the series."