Peters has a pair of knocks for Southern Illinois

Former Pembina Valley Oriole and Okotok Dawg OF Tristan Peters (Winkler, Man.) had two more hits in a win over Missouri State.

May 2, 2021

By John T. Lock

Southern Illinois

CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois Salukis shut out the Missouri State Bears for the second-straight day and clinched a four-game series sweep. Ben Chapman, Bubba Hall, and Trey McDaniel combined for the six-hit shutout in SIU’s 5-0 win.

“With the history that Missouri State has had in our league, it’s huge to be able to sweep a team like that,” SIU head coach Lance Rhodes said. “Really, it was just nice to see us play good baseball. We have a bunch of good teams in our league. It’s not necessarily about the teams we’re playing; it’s about how well we’re playing baseball.

“If you look at how we ran the bases, how we pitched, and how we executed offensively this weekend, if we do that, it really doesn’t matter who’s in the dugout over there. It could be anybody, and we’ll have a chance to win. I was just happy with how we played the game this weekend compared to how we’d been playing it the last couple weeks.”

On Saturday, Brad Harrison pitched a complete-game six-hit shutout. Today, Chapman nearly matched that. The Rochester, Ill., native pitched 7.2 innings, struck out nine, and walked none. Bubba Hall got SIU out of that inning, and McDaniel closed the door in the ninth. SIU (31-12, 10-10 MVC) swept a series vs. Missouri State for just the third time in program history.

A huge defensive play early in the game made the shutout possible. In the top of the second inning, Missouri State (15-15, 5-7 MVC) had runners on the corners with nobody out. Chapman got a popup on the infield to keep a run off the board. Then, Evan Martin caught a ball in right field and threw a one-hop strike to the plate, and Austin Ulick picked the ball off the hop and applied the tag to end the inning unscathed.

Offensively, SIU took the momentum from the Martin-Ulick double play into the bottom of the inning. Cody Cleveland (single) and Philip Archer (double) gave SIU runners on second and third with nobody out. Martin and Vinni Massaglia did their jobs and got both runners home with RBI ground outs.

With Chapman cruising on the mound, the score stayed 2-0 until the eighth. Hall got SIU out of a two-on, two-out jam with one pitch in the top half. In the bottom half, Austin Ulick led off with a single and J.T. Weber hit a one-out double. Tristan Peters doubled SIU’s lead with a two-run double; and after advancing to third, Peters (Winkler, Man.) gave SIU a 5-0 lead by scoring on a wild pitch. McDaniel worked around a one-out double to pitch a scoreless ninth.

Peters continues to lead the team with a .364 average in 43 games while going 14-for-15 on the base paths. Peters has 16 doubles, two triples, two homers and 39 RBIs, with a 1.003 OPS.