Five doubles and a pair of solo homers in the first four innings powered the Morehead State baseball team to an 8-5 victory over visiting Dayton Tuesday at Allen Field.
The Eagles, who improved to 23-2 at home in 2019, also moved to 34-19 overall and are just one victory shy of the program's regular-season win record of 35, set by the 2015 OVC Championship team.
Morehead State built a 8-1 advantage after the first five at-bats and then held on as seven pitchers combined to bend but not break in the victory. The Eagles held Dayton hitless until the sixth inning.
"Scoring early and hanging those crooked numbers on the scoreboard is something we really haven't done much of this year, so it was nice to get on top early," said head coach Mike McGuire. "We got really good pitching for the most part. We made a little bit of a mess for ourselves due to free bases in th seventh inning, but it was good to see guys like Will (Lozinak) get back out there, and (freshman lefty) John Bakke hasn't thrown a whole lot for us."
Lozinak, the sophomore right-hander, had been held out of action for a while but made the start and tossed the first 1.2 innings to be credited with the win to improve to 6-1. Senior southpaw David Looney closed the books on the night with an inning-ending double play in the ninth to preserve his second save of the year.
After the Eagles allowed an unearned run to open the game, senior center-fielder Connor Pauly started a three-run outburst in the first inning with a two-out, solo homer to right field - his ninth long ball of the campaign. Junior DH Jon Burghardt belted an RBI single, and senior first baseman Trevor Snyder cranked the first of his two doubles down the left-field line for another run.
MSU tacked on three more runs in the third inning when junior second baseman Ryan Layne mashed a two-run double down the left-field line following Snyder's two-bagger in the same location. Senior left-fielder Jake Hammon added an RBI single.
Sophomore third baseman Stephen Hill was responsible for the final two runs. He nailed his fifth homer of the year of the fourth frame, a towering moon shot to the deepest part of the ballyard in left center-field. His RBi single in the fifth plated Layne, who had walked and stole second base prior to moving to third on seniro catcher Hunter Fain's single.
Three RBI singles by the Flyers brought them to within 8-4 in the seventh frame and a solo home run set the final margin at plus-three for the Eagles.
MSU pelted seven Dayton pitchers for 14 hits. Hill, Burghardt, Snyder, Fain and junior shortstop Dom Peroni all totaled two each.
Morehead State returns to action at home Thursday hosting Southeast Missouri. Game one of the OVC final series is set for 5 p.m. ET.
