April 23, 2021

By John T. Lock

Southern Illinois

VALPARAISO, Ind. - The Valparaiso Crusaders hit walkoffs on both ends of the doubleheader against Southern Illinois Friday afternoon at Emory Bauer Field. Jonathan Temple hit a solo homer in the bottom of the ninth inning in the first game to give Valpo a 7-6 win. In the second game, Valpo rallied from a 3-0 seventh-inning deficit to walk off with a 4-3 win.

“It was obviously a very disappointing day,” SIU head coach Lance Rhodes said. “it felt like after a week practice that we had gotten momentum on our side. We just didn’t play well in any area. When you don’t play in league play, you’re going to get beat. We’ve dug ourselves a hole, and now we have to figure out a way to get out of it. I know this: It won’t be for lack of effort. We just have to be better.”

The first game was a back-and-forth affair. SIU (25-11, 5-9 MVC) took a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Valpo (7-20, 2-8 MVC) tied the game with two runs in the second inning. Evan Martin gave SIU a 4-2 lead with a two-run homer in the third, and Valpo answered right back with three runs in the bottom half to lead 5-4. Nick Neville tied the game for SIU with a towering homer in the fifth, and the Brown and Gold again answered back with a solo homer in the sixth to take a 6-5 lead.

The score stayed there into the ninth inning, and Cody Cleveland briefly looked like he could be the hero with a solo homer to tie the game. But Valpo pinch hit Temple in the bottom of the ninth, and he hit his first career home run to straightaway center field to win the game for Valpo.

Hitting clean-up Tristan Peters tripled to left to knock in the game’s first run and then scored on a wild pitch. He is hitting .372 -- second high on the team -- with 12 doubles, a triple, two homers, 33 RBIs and a 1.012 OPS in 36 games.

The second game, a seven-inning game, was a classic pitcher’s duel until the seventh inning. Noah Farmer was outstanding for SIU. He struck out six over four scoreless innings and allowed just three hits. When Farmer got in trouble in the fifth, Trey McDaniel entered into a two-on, no-out situation and got out of it unscathed. After a strikeout, Valpo got a single but did not test the arm of SIU’s left fielder J.T. Weber, holding the runner from second base at third with one out. McDaniel got a strikeout for the second out. Nick Neville made an incredible sliding play behind the second base bag and threw out the runner at first to end the inning unscathed. McDaniel breezed through a 1-2-3 sixth to send the game to the final frame in a scoreless tie.

Austin Ulick drew a one-out walk in the top of the seventh inning, and Valpo threw the ball away on a subsequent ground ball trying to get the lead runner. Evan Martin briefly looked like he would be the hero with an RBI double that put SIU ahead 1-0, then Peters (Winkler, Man.) added a two-out, two-strike, two-run single to give SIU a 3-0 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh.

In the bottom of the seventh, McDaniel got a quick strikeout, but the Salukis committed a one-out error to start Valpo’s rally. After the error, Valpo followed with a walk and a single to load the bases with one out. Valpo drew an RBI hit-by-pitch to get within 3-1, and McDaniel got a pop out for the second out. But Kyle Schmack, the son of Valpo head coach Brian Schmack, hit a two-run single with two outs to tie the game, 3-3. Riley Dent followed with a full count RBI single to score the game’s winning run and give Valpo the 4-3 win.