Southeast baseball team tops regional rival Southern Illinois

After seeing success as a starting pitcher last season, Ryan Lenaburg isn't finding it hard to make the transition into a reliable relief pitcher for the Southeast Missouri State baseball team this year.

"We have other guys that have been throwing the ball really well, so I'm just picking it up where everybody leaves off in the bullpen, knowing that things will turn out just fine," Lenaburg said.

Things turned out to be more than fine for the right-handed senior, who entered in the fifth inning to hold the lead for the Redhawks in a two-run game.

After walking the go-ahead run to load the bases against regional rival Southern Illinois on Tuesday, Lenaburg got the next batter to pop out and end the inning.

Lenaburg pitched another shutout inning, allowing just one hit, and with the help of redshirt freshman closer Matt Wade, Southeast held off the Salukis for a 7-4 victory at Capaha Field.

The bullpen pair combined for a two-hit shutout performance over 4 1/3 innings in relief of starting pitcher Garrett Stockton. Lenaburg picked up his third win of the season, while Wade got his fourth save.

"We've talked about bridging good pitching performances together over the last few weeks, and we saw that tonight," Southeast coach Steve Bieser said. "We've been trying to get Ryan into some of these closer situation type games, and tonight he had laser focus out of the bullpen. Matt was able to put everything in perspective once Ryan's night was done and he had no problem kind of closing that door. That's what you need in a close game like that."

Southeast Missouri State's Ryan Lenaburg pitches to a Southern Illinois batter in the fifth inning Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at Capaha Field. (Glenn Landberg)

Southeast (22-14) took a 2-0 lead over SIU (7-29) in the first inning.

Trevor Ezell singled to begin the game and moved up to second when Jason Blum was hit by a pitch. One batter later, Garrett Gandolfo's single to right field scored both runners to give the Redhawks the lead for good.

"I thought his at-bats tonight were just outstanding," Bieser said about Gandolfo. "Being a DH isn't always the easiest thing to do. You're sitting on the bench and waiting to get an at-bat. There's not a lot of guys that can DH, so for Garrett to be comfortable in that spot, in the three-hole producing runs, is a positive we don't take for granted."

Gandolfo finished 2 for 5 with two RBIs, including a double off the center field wall in the third, which scored Ezell to extend the lead to 4-0.

Southeast scored its third run a batter earlier, when Blum's sacrifice bunt scored Clayton Evans, who had walked to begin the inning.

SIU cut into the Redhawks' lead with three runs on three hits in the fourth.

Stockton retired the first two batters of the fourth but gave up a single and hit a batter before surrendering an RBI single to Taylor Martin, which made it 4-1. During the next at-bat Stockton threw a wild pitch, allowing a run to score before a double by Parker Osborne scored another run to cut Southeast's lead to 4-3.

The Redhawks got some help in the fourth, scoring two runs on a couple errors to push the lead to 6-4.

Stockton hit another batter to begin the fifth, and after back-to-back ground balls advanced the runner to third, Tyler Rolland's RBI single pulled the Salukis within two.

After Lenaburg came in to retire the final batter in the fifth, the Salukis were held to just two hits and three base runners for the remainder of the game.

"That's the spot we need Ryan to be good in, and we have all the confidence in the world that he can be that stopper," Bieser said. "We know he's had success at both, so tonight was just another step for him to solidify that he can be the guy we call on to get us out of tough spots."

Southeast scored its last run in the eighth when Blum drew a walk with the bases loaded, allowing Ryan Rippee, who singled to begin the inning, to score from third.

The Redhawks will look to stay in first place in the Ohio Valley Conference when they host defending OVC tournament champion Jacksonville State in a three-game series beginning at 6:30 p.m. Friday.

"Hopefully we can get in two really good days of work because we've got a really fundamentally sound program coming in," Bieser said. "They're going to play the game the right way, and we've got to be able to match that type of baseball. We've got to play error free baseball, and get some good starting pitching and timely hitting to win this series. "