ST. LOUIS – Southern Illinois baseball pitcher Brad Harrison and outfielder Alex Lyon swept weekly awards from the Missouri Valley Conference, the league announced Monday. Harrison was the league’s Pitcher of the Week for a second-straight week, and Lyon was the Valley’s Player of the Week.

Harrison allowed only one infield single in eight shutout innings at Southeast Missouri on Tuesday night. Remarkably, Harrison allowed only one ball to leave the infield all game, a third-inning fly out to left field. After SEMO’s leadoff hitter reached on an infield single, Harrison essentially pitched a perfect game the rest of the way—SEMO’s only other base runner reached on a dropped third strike. For the game, Harrison piled up a career-high 13 strikeouts and did not walk a batter. He extended his active scoreless streak to 18 innings. For good measure, Harrison also added an RBI single in SIU’s 10-4 win over Northern Illinois on Saturday.

Lyon hit .625 with two doubles, a triple, four stolen bases, and 10 RBIs in SIU’s 5-0 week. Lyon posted an .875 slugging percentage for the week and a .632 on-base percentage. Lyon had at least two hits in every game. He went 3-for-4 with 5 RBIs at Murray State, and he went 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs and three stolen bases on the series finale vs. Northern Illinois. Lyon entered the week hitting .375 and still managed to raise his season batting average nearly 75 points to .446, which now leads the MVC.

SIU swept both awards in the same week for the first time since 2005, when Southern swept the awards twice.

Southern Illinois travels to Arkansas State on Tuesday, and the Salukis host nationally ranked Illinois this weekend at Itchy Jones Stadium.

 

By Tom Weber, siusalukis.com

Southern Illinois junior guard Marcus Bartley was named a CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) Academic All-American on Monday. He joined fellow Missouri Valley Conference player Reed Timmer on the Third Team.

A sport administration major with a 4.00 GPA, Bartley led Southern Illinois with 90 assists, despite missing the first six games of the season with a broken wrist. He returned in December and played in 26 games, including 22 starts. The Saint Louis transfer and Decatur, Illinois native averaged 6.7 points and ranked second on the team in 3-point shooting percentage at .383. In two games against Northern Iowa, he went 8-for-11 from outside the arc.

Bartley is the program’s first Academic All-America team pick since Bryan Mullins won first-team honors in 2009.

FIRST TEAM Name    School    Yr.    GPA    Major
Jevon Carter    West Virginia    Sr.    3.51    Sport Management
Tyler Clement    Creighton    Gr.    4.00 / 4.00    Finance / Marketing
A.J. Jacobson (1) (%)    North Dakota State    Gr.    3.99 / 4.00    Zoology (U) / Master of Business Administration (G)
Tyler Seibring (3)    Elon    Jr.    3.95    English / Economics
Joe Sherburne    UMBC    Jr.    4.00    Financial Economics

SECOND TEAM Name    School    Yr.    GPA    Major
Christian Adams    Costal Carolina    Jr.    4.00    Economics and Finance
Jalen Brunson    Villanova    Sr.    3.34    Communications
Jordan Howard (2)    Central Arkansas    Sr.    3.71    Digital Filmmaking
Luke Maye    North Carolina    Jr.    3.45    Business Administration
Skylar Mays    LSU    So.    4.01    Biological Sciences
Dylan Windler    Belmont    Jr.    3.84    Accounting

THIRD TEAM Name    School    Yr.    GPA    Major
Marcus Bartley    Southern Illinois    Jr.    4.00    Sport Administration
Joshua Braun (1) (*)    Grand Canyon    Gr.    3.83 / 3.60    Master of Business Administration
Stone Gettings    Cornell    Jr.    3.81    Applied Economics & Management
Reed Timmer    Drake University    Sr.    3.47    Pharmacy
Kevin Vannatta    UNC Asheville    Sr.    3.93    Accounting

CoSIDA Academic All-America® of the Year: Jevon Carter, West Virginia

CARBONDALE, Ill. – The Southern Illinois baseball team won both ends of a doubleheader against Northern Illinois to sweep the three-game series.

In the opener, SIU (8-8) led for nearly the entire game. NIU (4-10) scrambled for two runs in the sixth and two more in the eighth to take a 4-3 lead. In the bottom of the eighth, Connor Kopach led off with a walk, and Logan Blackfan crushed a two-run home run to give SIU the lead. After that, the floodgates opened, and SIU scored seven runs in the inning to win, 10-4.

In the second game, NIU took a 1-0 lead into the third inning. SIU loaded the bases with two outs, and Alex Lyon pounded a bases-clearing double into the left-center. Southern ran with the lead and swept the series with a 7-2 victory.

“We took care of business,” SIU head coach Ken Henderson said. “To me, the key to the day was two swings of the bat. Logan Blackfan in the first game, and Alex Lyon in the second game. Those are two big swings.”

Southern Illinois got two solid pitching performances. In the doubleheader opener, Jamison Steege allowed two runs in six innings. Trey McDaniel pitched five scoreless outs before NIU strung together a walk and two singles to take the lead. McDaniel got the final out of the inning to keep it a one-run game, and he earned the win after Blackfan’s homer and SIU’s seven-run bottom half.

“I’m proud of what we did in the first game,” Henderson said. “We led the whole game and gave it up. Then, Logan had a big swing, and we kept adding on.”

In the second game, Mason Hiser had his best start of the year and earned his first Division I win. Northern Illinois loaded the bases with nobody out and scored an unearned run on a sacrifice fly, but Hiser limited the damage to the one run. After that, he threw four scoreless frames.

“The key was him minimizing that,” Henderson said. “Two errors and two walks led to only one run. We talk all the time about minimizing the damage. After that, he got on a roll and threw a lot closer to the guy we think he’s going to be. He kept the ball down in the zone and threw strikes. His slider was better today than it’s been all year. He really competed for us.”

The Salukis stole nine bases in the doubleheader. For the season, SIU already has 43 stolen bases, nearly halfway to last year’s total of 100 stolen bases, which ranked 14th nationally.

“That’s the kind of baseball we want to play,” Henderson said. “I think it’s fun, and our kids think it’s fun. It’s demoralizing for other people. You put so much pressure on them. Everybody looks at the stolen bases, and that’s a big part of it, but it’s also going first-to-third. It’s also moving defenses around. People are out of position all the time. And what does it do to the pitcher? I guarantee when people prepare for us, the first thing they say is, ‘You have to control their running game.’ Having had to do that against other teams, I know that’s not fun.”

After starting the year 3-8, SIU has ripped off five-straight wins. The Salukis are back in action Tuesday at Arkansas State before hosting Illinois for a three-game series next weekend.

Box Score Game 1

http://siusalukis.com/boxscore.aspx?id=8060&path=baseball

Box Score Game 2

http://siusalukis.com/boxscore.aspx?id=8061&path=baseball