Southeast Missouri State baseball teams tops Harris-Stowe to extend winning streak to four games

In nearly every other sentence that Southeast Missouri State senior first baseman Ryan Rippee spoke following his team's Tuesday night game against NAIA Harris-Stowe was the word momentum.

Whether it was how he and his teammates had used the momentum from their three-game sweep of Morehead State over the weekend or whether he hoped that the momentum from their latest non-conference game would power them to another few victories when they get back into Ohio Valley Conference action on Thursday, the word kept coming up.

Rippee and the Redhawks carried over their winning ways from their OVC sweep to defeat the Hornets 18-10 at Capaha Field to win their fourth game in a row and improve to 14-8.

Rippee, who went 2 for 13 with a run and an RBI against Morehead, led Southeast against Harris-Stowe, going 3 for 5 with three runs and five RBIs. All three of his hits were doubles.

"I hit the ball hard the whole series and just didn't find holes and was lucky enough to find some holes tonight," Rippee said with a smile. "I'm just going to keep trying to hit the ball hard, and hopefully they'll find some more holes."

The idea of a carry-over for Rippee was on Bieser's mind as well.

"When he starts swinging at pitches that he can handle and kind of letting the other pitches go by him until he has to actually swing at one of those [he's more successful], so I thought he did a good job in each at-bat of getting a good pitch to hit, and when he got that good pitch, he put it in fair play rather than fouling it off," Bieser said. "Those are good things to see, especially because once Ryan gets hot, Ryan can carry that streak for awhile. That's kind of what we're hoping, that he's just at the beginning of that and he can continue to carry that through the rest of the season."

Southeast took a 2-0 lead over the Hornets after one inning when second baseman Trevor Ezell led off the home half of the frame with a solo home run to right center for the second game in a row and third baseman Hunter Leeper followed with a homer to center on the next at-bat.

Harris-Stowe took advantage of starter Daniel Bergtholdt and the Redhawks' struggles in the top of the third. A leadoff single, base on balls and a bunt that Leeper dropped but ruled a hit loaded the bases with no outs. Bergtholdt issued another walk, driving in a run, before falling behind 2-0 to No. 3 hitter Arsalaan Alvi.

Southeast coach Steve Bieser replaced the freshman lefty with right-hander Brady Wright with the count at 2-0 and the bases loaded. Wright was unable to work back from the count he inherited and walked Alvi to even the game at 2-apiece.

He recorded a strikeout before giving up a two-run single, and then groundout and a third-strike wild pitch each allowed a run to score to give the Hornets a 6-2 lead.

"It snuck up on us," Bieser said. "I thought Bergtholdt came out and threw the ball OK in the first inning, and then really looked like the Daniel Bergtholdt we know in the second inning, and then he comes out in the third and once he got a couple runners he started kind of trying to pinpoint and get the ball over the plate rather than just pitch."

The Redhawks got within a run in the bottom of the third when Rippee drove in two with a double and later scored on a base hit by designated hitter Chris Caffrey.

Harris-Stowe scored one in the fourth and Southeast answered with three of its own in the home half. Right fielder Daniel Costello, who led off the inning with a four-pitch walk, scored on a sacrifice bunt by center fielder Dan Holst. Left fielder Garrett Gandolfo put the Redhawks up 8-7 with a two-out, two-run double off the wall in center.

The Hornets evened it in the top of the next inning, but Southeast quickly regained the lead for good when

Caffrey tripled over the center fielder and scored on a Costello double to make it 9-8. The Redhawks, who finished with 16 hits in the contest, added five runs in the sixth, three more in the seventh and one on a home run by Holst in the eighth to bring their run total to a season high.

Meanwhile, sophomore righty Matthew Wade entered in relief and shut down Harris-Stowe's offense in the sixth and seventh. He pitched two scoreless innings, allowing just one hit in the sixth on a ball that took a sharp hop that Boggetto couldn't make a difficult play on at short.

Wade's outing was one of the most exciting things for Bieser.

"Because we're going to need Matthew this season and seeing him go out and throw enough strikes to compete against anybody," Bieser said. "We know he's got good stuff, good fastball and he was able to throw some decent sliders tonight, which can keep top-level hitters off of his fastball. That was the most impressive thing, or the thing that I wanted to see the most. I really wanted to see some of our bullpen guys throw the ball really well tonight, and Matthew was definitely the bright spot of the bullpen."

Alex Siddle picked up the win in relief to improve to 1-1 in his senior season. He allowed two earned runs on four hits in the fourth and fifth innings. Harris-Stowe's Larry Molina (1-5) took the loss.

"I think [despite] the fact that we have so many new guys we're really starting to come together now and mesh," Ezell said. "We've won a lot of games and we haven't even played the way we know we can play, so when that really starts to mesh together and we really click, we potentially can do something special."

Southeast, which is 6-0 in the OVC, travels to Martin, Tennessee, to face UT Martin for a three-game series beginning Thursday night.

"Finding a way to win is the most important thing right now, and then when it all starts clicking things are going to get much easier," Bieser said. "But we've got to grind through it every single game right now. We've got to find ways to get that big hit whenever we just maybe had a base running mistake or whatever it is, we've got to find a way to continue to get the big hits and do enough to win ballgames."