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SIUE Baseball SIUE Athletics | |
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Indianapolis 6 SIUE 3
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Cougars Head to Title Matchup vs. Indianapolis
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Dave Crouthers ripped a grand slam home run and Chad Opel collected five hits as Southern Illinois University Edwardsville downed Ashland 12-2 at the NCAA Division II North Central Regional baseball tournament. SIUE, 38-25, lost its first game of the day to Indianapolis 6-3 and then held off elimination by defeating Ashland. The Cougars must defeat Indianapolis, 51-13, twice on Sunday to advance to the NCAA Division II finals in Montgomery, Ala., beginning next weekend. The Cougars rallied in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings to power past Ashland, which finished the season with a 38-18 record. Nick Seibert picked up his 11th homer of the season with a solo blast to lead off the fifth. SIUE added three more runs on five more hits in the inning to take the lead for good 4-2. SIUE added two more runs in the sixth with RBIs singles from Opel (Edwardsville) and Crouthers (Edwardsville). The duo combined for eight hits and six runs batted in. In the seventh, Ashland got into another pitching jam. This time Crouthers put the game away with a grand slam over the left field fence at Greyhound Park, his ninth home run of the season. Josh Clark pitched a complete game to improve his record to 6-2. After giving up two runs in the fourth inning, Clark settled down and allowed just five hits to Ashland. Earlier in the day, Indianapolis handed SIUE its first defeat of the NCAA Tournament with a 6-3 triumph. Indianapolis gave Matt Wilkinson his first loss of the season. Wilkinson fell to 9-1. Indianapolis pitching held SIUE to just six hits. Chad Humphrey’s (Rantoul) solo home run highlighted the Cougars’ offense. -siue- |