CARBONDALE, Ill. (SIU ATHLETICS)- - The SIU baseball team shut out Missouri State for the second-straight day and clinched a four-game series sweep over the Bears.聽,听, and聽聽combined for the six-hit shutout in SIU's 5-0 win.聽
"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聽聽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."
Yesterday,听聽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.聽聽got SIU out of that inning, and McDaniel closed the door in the ninth.聽SIU (31-12, 10-10 MVC) swept a series vs. Missouri State for just the third time in program history.
"Chapman carried over what the pitching staff did all weekend," Rhodes said. "The pitchers threw quality strikes and had quality misses when they were ahead in the count. They had great pace, which helped our defensive effort. They were in control all weekend long. Our defense fed off that."
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,听聽caught a ball in right field and threw a one-hop strike to the plate, and聽聽picked the ball off the hop and applied the tag to end the inning unscathed.聽
"He stayed behind the ball really well, came in, and then put the throw right on the money," Rhodes said. "AU () came up the line just a little bit, but that's a harder play than people think. It's tough to receive a ball as a runner is bearing down on you. For him to be able to hang in there, catch it and put a tag on. It's a good throw on Evan's part, and it's just as good for AU to hang in there and make the tag."
Offensively, SIU took the momentum from the Martin-Ulick double play into the bottom of the inning.聽聽(single) and聽聽(double) gave SIU runners on second and third with nobody out. Martin and聽聽did their jobs and got both runners home with RBI groundouts.聽
"Phil had some clutch at-bats all weekend long," Rhodes said. "We had different people step up all weekend long. At the right moments, we had big hits, big pitches, and big plays defensively, too."
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,听聽led off with a single and聽聽hit a one-out double.聽聽doubled SIU's lead with a two-run double; and after advancing to third, Peters gave SIU a 5-0 lead by scoring on a wild pitch. McDaniel worked around a one-out double to pitch a scoreless ninth.聽
"We were trying to just play for one in the eighth," Rhodes said. "We knew we were going to Trey in the ninth. If we can push it to 3-0, we were going to feel really confident. But to be able to push it to 5-0, and I've said this before, but that felt like 10-0 at that point. Trey threw as well as he has all year long this weekend. In three appearances on the weekend, he was really efficient."
UP NEXT:聽SIU is back on the road for a four-game non-conference series next weekend at Evansville. The Salukis and Aces played one weekend series already this season, with SIU taking three games out of four against the Aces March 12-14 for the series that counted in the MVC standings. Next weekend's series, despite being conference opponents, will be officially non-conference games.
狈翱罢贰厂:听SIU swept a series vs. Missouri State for just the third time in program history (2007, 2016) ... SIU has won six-straight vs. Missouri State, dating back to 2019, the longest winning streak for SIU in the history of the series ... SIU has won nine-straight home games ... SIU is 58-19 in its last 77 home games, dating back to 2018 ... SIU won back-to-back shutouts for the first time since 2018 (2-0 vs. SEMO (4/24/18) and 2-0 at Evansville (4/27/18)) ...聽聽extended his reached base streak to 26-straight games.聽
