April 2, 2021

By John T. Lock

Southern Illinois Athletics

CARBONDALE, Ill. - Illinois State scored five runs with two outs in the sixth inning to blow the game open and cruised to an 11-3 win over No. 28 ranked SIU on Friday night at Itchy Jones Stadium.

SIU left 17 runners on base in the loss and went 4-for-18 with runners in scoring position.

"We had opportunities early in the game, and we just didn't get the big hit," SIU head coach Lance Rhodes said. "We drove a couple balls to the wall. We had baserunners all over the place, and we just didn't get the big hit. Our at-bats were competitive; we just didn't get a big hit at the right time, which is something we've struggled with. We need to continue to evolve and get better in pressure situations."

The Salukis (19-4, 3-2 MVC) dropped their third-straight game after starting the season 19-1.

Illinois State (9-14, 1-0 MVC) won its MVC opener. Colton Johnson, who came into the game with a 2.41 ERA, pitched five shutout innings against a high-powered Saluki offense that ranked third in the nation in runs scored. The Salukis made Johnson work -- he needed 94 pitches to get through five shutout innings -- but the Salukis couldn't get the big hit to earn a lead. SIU stranded one runner in the second inning, three in the third, two in the fourth and two more in the fifth.

"You're talking about a guy (Johnson) who has a chance to be the pitcher of the year in our league, and I honestly thought we we had super-competitive at-bats against him," Rhodes said. "We didn't look overmatched. We squared the ball up several different times. We had some really tough luck. A couple balls that were squared up were inches away from shooting a gap. The third baseman caught a liner basically behind his head. It seems like luck doesn't go your way when you're in a funk. There's no one we can look to but ourselves. We have to figure out ourselves. We have to play better in pressure moments."

SIU starter Tanner Lewis, making his first career Division I start, pitched right with Johnson for most of the game. Lewis pitched into the sixth inning and left the game trailing just 2-0. But with two outs and two on in the sixth, the Redbirds got to SIU's bullpen. With the bases loaded, Noah Farmer got the ground ball he was looking for, but it was up the middle. Nick Neville made a sliding play to smother the ball, but Illinois State aggressively sent the runner from second base home, and Neville's throw home couldn't connect. After those two runs made the game 4-0, Illinois State drew two walks and hit a two-run single to turn a 2-0 nailbiter into a seven-run lead.

"(Lewis) threw the ball well. We needed a hit to get him a lead," Rhodes said. "When we're facing a guy like Johnson, who has given up 2.8 runs per game on a Friday night, your margin for error is super-slim. When they pushed it to four runs, it felt like 10. We needed to help Tanner out. He was pitching under enormous pressure from the first pitch all the way until we took him out because we didn't give him any run support. He knows he has to match that guy over there because runs are going to be at a premium. To be able to pitch as well as he did, knowing that he can't give up any runs, I thought he threw a pretty solid performance together. We just need to come up with a big hit to help him out."

The Redbirds, who have now won four of their last five games, briefly threatened to run-rule the Salukis with a run in the seventh and three in the eighth to take an 11-1 lead. SIU scored in the eighth and ninth to set the final score at 11-3.

UP NEXT: SIU and Illinois State will play a doubleheader on Saturday at 2 p.m. The first game of the doubleheader will be a seven-inning game, followed by a nine-inning second game. Ben Chapman will start the first game for SIU and Brad Harrison will start the second. Both games will stream nationally on ESPN3.

Peters (2-for-4) also had multi-hit games. Peters (Winkler, Man.) has 12 multi-hit games already this season.

SS Aiden Huggins (Edmonton, Alta.) singled for Illinois State..