APSU Baseball Team lacks offense in 8-1 loss at Indiana State

APSU Sports: Austin Peay Men’s Baseball

Terre Haute, IN – Austin Peay State University’s baseball team suffered through a rare bout of offensive impotence  and saw its nine-game win streak end with an 8-1 loss to Indiana State, Tuesday, at Bob Warn Field.

Indiana State’s (8-7) pitching staff kept the Govs offense stymied by way of 12 strikeouts. It was the second time in the last four games APSU struck out 12 times in game, equaling the season-high set at Lipscomb last week.

“I believe we struck out too much,” said Austin Peay head coach Gary McClure. “We didn’t do the things we have done all year. We didn’t see the baseball up in the zone and swung at a lot of pitches low in the zone. We didn’t have the quality at-bats like we have all year. Overall we didn’t compete at the plate very well today.”

The Sycamores offense was opportunistic in scoring eight runs, pushing home five runs with two outs. After the Govs scored their lone run, Indiana State responded with a three-run second inning. APSU starter Zach Hall surrendered a leadoff double and a walk to start the rally. Left fielder Owen Conway followed with an RBI single and second baseman Derek Hannahs added a sacrifice fly to give the Sycamores a 2-1 lead. Center fielder Landon Curry tacked on a third run with an RBI single.

Indiana State tacked on single runs in the fifth and sixth innings off Austin Peay relief pitching, pushing its advantage to 5-1. The Sycamores broke the game open in the eighth with three runs in the frame, including Conway’s two-run single that set the final score.

Hall (2-1) suffered his season’s first loss after allowing three runs on five hits over 4.0 innings. Hudson finished the day 2-for-3 with a run scored to pace the APSU offense.

ISU’s Tyler Fehringer (1-0) picked up the win after allowing one unearned run and striking out six over four innings. Owen Conway went 3-for-3 with three RBI to lead Indiana State’s 11-hit offensive attack.

“We’ve been doing all the little things that lead to base runners and putting pressure on the defense,” said McClure. “That’s exactly what we didn’t do today and for the first time I felt like we didn’t compete. I challenged them to see how we will respond after this loss and a bad performance on top of it.

Austin Peay returns home to begin a brief three-game homestand with an Ohio Valley Conference set against Jacksonville State, starting with a 6:00pm, Friday contest.

Box Score

Score by Innings                    R  H  E
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Austin Peay......... 010 000 000 -  1  2  0
Indiana State....... 030 011 03X -  8 11  1
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