Former Okotoks Dawg and Pembina Oriole CF Tristan Peters (Winkler, Man.) had two more hits in a loss to Murray State.

May 11, 2021

By John T. Lock

Southern Illinois Athletics

MURRAY, Ky. - The Murray State Racers benefitted from a walk off single from Jordan Cozart in the bottom of the 11th inning to beat the Southern Illinois Salukis 5-4 on Tuesday night. SIU left 17 runners on base in the loss.

The Salukis (33-15) struck first with a two-run second inning. Murray State (27-20) scored four runs in the fifth inning to take a 4-2 lead, which would be the only inning the Racers scored in until the 11th.

SIU fought back to force extras. Cody Cleveland hit a run-scoring fly ball in the sixth to get SIU within 4-3, and Kyle Back pitched a shutdown 1-2-3 bottom of the inning. The Salukis tied the game in the seventh with a two-out rally. Nick Neville (hit by pitch), Philip Archer (single) and Evan Martin (hit by pitch) all reached with two outs, and Ian Walters drew a walk to push home the tying run.

Tanner Lewis induced a 4-6-3 double play in the bottom of the seventh, and the Salukis loaded the bases with one out in the eighth, but Murray State pitcher Jacob Pennington got back-to-back strikeouts to end that threat.

SIU kept threatening -- the Salukis had two on and two out in the ninth, and the bases loaded with nobody out in the 11th -- but couldn’t push across another run. Cozart’s RBI single gave Murray its first win over SIU in the last six games between the schools.

The Salukis got several outstanding pitching efforts in the loss. Dylan Givens pitched 3 2/3 scoreless in his first start of the year. Kyle Back retired all five batters he faced. Tanner Lewis pitched two scoreless innings. Mike Hansell and Bubba Hall combined to keep Murray off the board in the ninth and 10th innings.

Offensively, SIU put pressure on the Racers all night but hit just 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position (.154). All nine spots in the order reached base at least once. Cody Cleveland (3-for-5), J.T. Weber (2-for-6), Tristan Peters (2-for-4), Philip Archer (3-for-6) and Ian Walters (2-for-4) all had multi-hit games. But of SIU’s 14 hits, 13 of them were singles.

Peters (Winkler, Man.) reached on an infield single to first in the first inning and singled through the right side leading off the fifth inning.

He leads SIU in hitting with a .368 average with 17 doubles, two triples, four homers and 44 RBIs. He owns a 1.047 OPS in 48 games.