07/30/2007

Miners bunch up to beat the Bums

Southern Illinois scores all its runs in four innings

from staff reports

MARION, Ill. — Southern Illinois scored all its runs in four straight innings Saturday night to beat Traverse City, 7-3.

The Miners struck for two runs in the second, third and fourth innings and tacked on one in the fifth.

Sean Patrick had a two-run single in the second and Willie Keene a two-run double in the third for the Miners. Eric Suttle's sacrifice fly and Seth Beason's RBI single in the fourth chased Beach Bums starter Tony Casoli (3-6).

Southern Illinois scored one in the fifth on a fielder's choice off the bat of Ryan Kane against reliver Jeff Williams. Nick Pepper finished up with 3&1/3 innings of hitless relief for TC, but the damage had already been done.

The Beach Bums got on the board first, pushing a pair of runs across in the opening frame.

Brad Roblin greeted Southern Illinois starter Griffin Bailey (2-0) with a leadoff triple down the right field line and Stephen Young followed with a RBI single to right center. Young stole second, took third on a single by Brad Vericker and came in to score on Kyle Bradburry's sacrifice fly.

Traverse City added an unearned run in the seventh inning as Justin Holmes singled, took second on a passed ball and came in to score on a pair of errors by Southern Illinois catcher Patrick.

Ben Lovell, who came on to relieve Bailey in the seventh, allowed only one hit over the final three innings for his first save of the season.

Southern Illinois outhit Traverse City by a slim 9-8 margin. Joey Metropoulos and Kane had two hits for the Miners while Roblin and Vericker had two for Traverse City.