Southeast Missouri State baseball team wins series opener against UT Martin

It had been five weeks since the Southeast Missouri State baseball team last played a game at its home ballpark.

After more than a month of rescheduled games and long road trips the Redhawks returned to Capaha Field on Friday afternoon.

Their homecoming commenced with a 16-2 victory over UT Martin on Friday to open a three-game Ohio Valley Conference series.

"I think Capaha Park was very friendly to us today, and it's just nice to be back home and hopefully get into a routine," Southeast coach Steve Bieser said. "It's been a tough early going getting that routine, but I listened to Travis Hayes talk a little bit beforehand and he just talked about the fact that I don't think the players really care -- as long as we're getting to play the games they're happy."

The Redhawks were definitely happy to set the tone for their first home weekend OVC series in dominating fashion. They improved to 11-9 overall and 5-2 in the conference with the win.

Southeast freshman Trevor Ezell led off the game with a double to extend his streak of reaching base to 20 consecutive games.

He and Jason Blum, who was walked three times and had two hits in the game, executed a double steal before scoring on a double by third baseman Andy Lennington in the first. Lennington was driven in to put the Redhawks up 3-0 after the first inning.

Southeast added a pair of runs in the second, including a leadoff home run by designated hitter Brendon Neel, to extend the lead to 5-0.

Shortstop Branden Boggetto hit a two-run homer and center fielder Clayton Evans had an RBI single in the third to make it 8-0 heading to the fourth.

Bieser believes the competition for spots in the lineup, which he's talked about since before the season started, is finally starting to pay off for the Redhawks' offense, which produced 13 hits.

"Sometimes it can hurt you, and I think it hurt us a bit early because guys were pressing to be so perfect to try to keep themselves in the lineup," Bieser said. "Now they understand that the season's long, and they're going to get their opportunities. They just have to be patient, and when they get those opportunities they just have to make the most of them. That's what I see the guys doing -- they're not trying to do too much. They're OK accepting a walk if the pitcher doesn't give them the pitch that they want to hit where before they were pressing a little bit thinking they had to get a hit every single time to get their name back in the lineup."

Southeast Missouri State second baseman Jason Blum tags out UT Martin's Andrew Castillo on a steal attempt during the first inning Friday, March 20, 2015 at Capaha Field. (Fred Lynch)

The Skyhawks' only runs came in the top of the fourth. After a fielder's choice, starter Travis Hayes gave up a double to put runners in scoring position and then a base hit up the middle cut the lead to 8-2.

Hayes was coming off an outing where he made it just 2 1/3 innings and allowed five earned runs on seven hits, including two home runs -- a performance he called his worst "ever."

The senior, who was the OVC Co-Pitcher of the Year last season, did not allow another run in his seven innings of work. He gave up seven hits, struck out seven and walked one.

"I liked the fact that he competed," Bieser said of Hayes. "Early on, to me, I've seen him better. He was still scuffling a little bit with location more than anything. The one thing we talked about was getting his curveball back that he had last year. I started to see that as the game went on. I started to see the curveball have more of the 12-6, and that's going to make him a tougher pitcher. Now it's just having that fastball command that he had last year. He struggled early with that but he picked it up. In that sixth and seventh I started seeing fastball command."

Meanwhile Southeast added a run in the bottom of the fourth and five more in the sixth.

Four straight Redhawks were walked to start the inning, which scored the first run and loaded the bases for Evans.

It took two pitches for the junior to hit a grand slam to left off the third pitcher of the inning, Dillon Symon, to make it 14-2.

"You check the scouting report, you get up there, and I saw the first fastball and it was 1-0, and I knew I was getting another one and he gave it to me," Evans said. "I was just lucky I hit it over."

Lennington drove in two more in the eighth for the final score.

Southeast Missouri State starter Travis Hayes pitches to a UT Martin batter during the first inning Friday, March 20, 2015 at Capaha Field. (Fred Lynch)

Hayes improved to 4-2 on the season with the win.

"The biggest thing was that I had such good defense behind me today," Hayes said. "[Catcher] Hunter [Leeper] threw out three runners, which, I mean, when you have a catcher that has that good of an arm behind the plate it's always kind of a comfort to know that as long as I do my part and get the ball to the plate quick that he's going to help me out and save runs, and he did that today."

"I'm lucky I didn't give up more runs than I did because I couldn't command the inner half, but at the same time you've got awesome guys behind me on the field, so even when I don't necessarily have the best command on my fastball chances are when they put it in play somebody's going to make a play, and they did that today."

The Redhawks, who played five games in the four days before an off day on Thursday and had a depleted bullpen, needed a deeper start from Hayes, and senior Ryan Lenaburg relieved him for the final two innings, allowing just one hit and striking out two in his scoreless frames.

"Honestly I thought the only fresh guy that we had in the bullpen today that needed to throw was Lenaburg, and it worked out perfect where Ryan was able to throw a couple innings, kept his pitch count down, so now tomorrow I feel confident about our bullpen and having almost everybody ready to go tomorrow," Bieser said.