Southeast Missouri State baseball team succumbs to late rally

The Southeast Missouri State baseball team demonstrated the ability to overcome a rain delay, a light outage, an umpire delay and Indiana State ace Jeff Degano.

However, the Redhawks were not able to overcome an increasingly troublesome issue -- a balky bullpen.

The Sycamores scored five runs in the eighth inning off a pair of Southeast relievers to rally for an 8-7 victory on their home field Friday night in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The bottom of Indiana State's lineup did the damage off Redhawks relievers Matt Wade and Ryan Lenaburg. A bases-loaded, two run-single by Kaden Moore, the Sycamore's No. 8 hitter, was followed by a three-run home run by No. 9 hitter Connor McClain.

The damage, which came before a batter was retired, unwound an otherwise successful but long evening for the Redhawks, who had used two home runs by Hunter Leeper, one by Ryan Rippee and the pitching of ace Joey Lucchesi to seemingly take command.

Southeast, which leads the Ohio Valley Conference, fell to 31-18, while Indiana State of the Missouri Valley Conference improved to 22-23.

Rippee and Leeper both hit a home run off Degano, a 6-foot-4 left-hander, who had yielded just one home run on the season. Southeast pushed six runs across on the hard-throwing Degano, who entered the game fifth in the nation with 104 strikeouts in 80 2/3 innings and among 46 pitchers on the College Baseball Hall Of Fame Pitcher of the Year watch list.

The start of the game was pushed back just over an hour due to rain, and Rippee staked the Redhawks to a 1-0 lead in the top of the second with a one-out blast to left-center field. It was his ninth home run of the season.

Both teams struck for two runs in a fourth inning that lasted an hour due to a 15-minute delay in the top of the inning when power was lost at Bob Warn Field and an accumulated 25 minutes of delays in the bottom half when the home-plate umpire was struck in the leg by a pitch, attempted to work through the pain but ultimately was replaced by one of the other two umpires in the crew.

The inning started with a single by the Redhawks' Jason Blum, who went to second when Branden Boggetto was hit by a pitch, took third on a wild pitch and scored on a Rippee groundout. Cole Ferguson added a two-out single to score Boggetto for a 3-0 Southeast lead.

The Sycamores scored two runs on a single by Hunter Owen among the delays in the bottom of the inning to cut the lead to 3-2.

Southeast tacked on a run in the fifth when Andy Lennington was hit by a Degano delivery with the bases loaded. Trevor Ezell, who had opened the inning with a single, scored on the play.

Indiana State got the run back in the bottom half of the inning, but it could have been worse after Lucchesi issued a leadoff walk, committed an error on the next batter's bunt before uncorking a wild pitch to put runners at second and third with no outs. However, Lucchesi maintained his composure and limited the Sycamores to just an RBI groundout that cut the Southeast lead to 4-3.

Leeper, who had three of the Redhawks' nine hits, restored the two-run cushion with his first home run at Southeast to open the sixth inning. The Redhawks chased Degano with two more hits and a run in the inning.

Degano, who possesses a fastball that can reach the mid-90s, allowed a season-high six earned runs on seven hits. He struck out eight and walked two.

Lucchesi struggled with his control but limited the damage over six innings by allowing only three hits. He hit a batter and walked six, including three passes to load the bases in his final inning before escaping the jam. He struck out five,

Leeper added another leadoff home run in the eighth off Connor Schweinebart (4-1), who replaced Degano in the sixth, to extend the lead to 7-3. Schweinebart gave up two hits over 2 2/3 innings in recording the win.

Matt Wade pitched a scoreless seventh for Southeast, but he did not retire a batter in the eighth. He issued a walk to Hunter Owen to open the inning, and the Sycamores quickly loaded the bases on singles by Andy DeJesus and Manuel Estevez. Wade then threw his final pitch, surrendering a two-run single to Moore that cut Southeast's lead to 7-5.

Ryan Lenaburg (3-3) came on and allowed the home run to McClain, who originally was trying to bunt the runners over, giving the Sycamores their first lead at 8-7.

Austin Conway retired Southeast in order in the ninth for his sixth save.

Indiana State leads the all-time series 3-0.

The teams continue the series at 5:30 p.m. today.