In a contest that featured 30 combined hits, Morehead State baseball hammered four home runs and rallied with a big fourth-inning to oust Southeast Missouri 13-9 Thursday at Allen Field.
The win moved the Eagles to 35-19 overall and 17-11 in the OVC and tied the program's record for regular season wins (35 in 2015). Southeast Missouri slipped to 23-30 overall and 10-18 in the league and will need to beat the Eagles both times the rest of the weekend or risk missing the OVC Tournament for the first time.
Senior center-fielder Connor Pauly smacked two home runs - his first multi-homer game - and went 4-for-4, while senior first baseman Trevor Snyder matched Pauly at the plate by going 4-for-4 while also cranking a home run. Pauly became the first Eagle to reach 10 long balls this season.
MSU fell behind 5-1 after three-and-a-half frames but erupted for a six-run fourth inning to lead 7-5 and never trailed again. Among the power for the Eagles, senior catcher Hunter Fain crushed his first career triple, a two-run three-bagger, and junior second baseman Dom Peroni ripped an RBI double. Junior DH Jon Burghardt clobbered his sixth home run this month during the fourth-inning scoring rally.
MSU starter Dalton Stambaugh only wnt four innings and allowed four earned runs but left with the lead and was credited with the win to improve to 7-3. Junior righty Blake Preston and senior lefty David Looney were touched up a bit in the middle frames but kept SEMO trailing before freshman Landon Weins came on to allow no earned runs in the final 2.2 innings and grab his second career save.
Five Redhawk hitters had multi-hit days, including Tyler Wilber with four hits. Devon Wilson belted a three-run homer in the top of the fourth to give his team the 5-1 lead. But, the Eagles forced SEMO into just a 1-for-6 effort with runners in scoring position in the last four innings.
Senior shortstop Reid Leonard played in his 228th career game to set the Morehead State career record.
Included in the Eagles' 16-hit day was Fain and sophomore third baseman Stephen Hill collecting two each.
The teams will play game two in the series Friday at 5 p.m. ET.
