SIU drops series at North Florida with 9-6 loss

By John Lock siusalukis.com

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Southern Illinois baseball team battled back from a 5-1 deficit to take a 6-5 lead, but North Florida answered with four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to win the game 9-6 and the series 2-1.

SIU (2-5) trailed 5-1 after four innings. The Salukis scored two 2-out runs in the fifth to get within 5-3. With two outs and nobody on in the seventh, Nikola Vasicdrew a walk; Alex Lyon and Logan Blackfan followed with back-to-back home runs to center field to give SIU a 6-5 lead.

“That’s why those guys are sitting there in the 3- and 4-hole,” SIU head coach Ken Henderson said of Lyon and Blackfan. “Once we got through the first few innings, we put a lot of good ABs together. Those were quality ABs, and it was a great job by Niko to get on in front of them. Those were clutch.”

The bottom of the seventh inning started with what appeared to be a routine ground ball to Blackfan at first base. The ball caught a bad hop and jumped over Blackfan’s head to give North Florida (3-4) the leadoff man on first base. SIU made a throwing error on the next hitter; and two batters later, right fielder Kenton Crawford made a sprinting attempt at a ball deep in the right-center gap, but the ball bounced out of his glove. By the end of the inning, UNF had four runs to re-take a sizable 9-6 lead.

“We got a bad break with the bad-hop single, but that can’t lead to four runs,” Henderson said. “We have to do a better job minimizing and making sure it doesn’t lead to a big inning. It might lead to one run, but then you’re still tied. We didn’t control what we could control, and we didn’t minimize it in that inning.”

Nine of the game’s first 11 runs came with two outs. With the game tied, 1-1, in the bottom of the fourth, SIU starter Mason Hiser got two quick outs. The Ospreys followed with back-to-back doubles and then back-to-back homers to take a 5-1 lead.

In the next half-inning, Connor Kopach drew a two-out walk, and Vasic followed with a double. Lyon then scored Vasic on a play where the UNF shortstop made a diving stop, then threw wide of home when Vasic turned to score from second base. Then in the seventh, Vasic drew the two-out walk before the back-to-back homers by Lyon and Blackfan.

“We competed. We had the right guys up, and they had quality ABs,” Henderson said. “We just need to have better ABs up-and-down the lineup, and we will. We gave away some ABs early, but again, we competed extremely hard. There’s a lot to build on.”

SIU walked just four batters during the three-game series.

“We talk about throwing strikes, making routine plays, and grinding out ABs,” Henderson said. “We threw a ton of strikes this weekend. When you only walk three or four guys in a weekend, you’re going to come out ahead most of the time. We have to make routine plays; we need to clean that up because we haven’t done that well enough. We’re grinding out ABs, but not up and down the lineup. If we do that, we will win because our talent level is good enough.”

UP NEXT: Southern Illinois faces Belmont on Tuesday at 4 p.m. CT.