Senior pitchers Garret Rogers and David Looney combined for 14 strikeouts, and Morehead State had eight hitters each garner an RBI as the Eagles defeated Alabama State 9-2 Tuesday for the team's fifth straight win.
Rogers, the starter, fanned a career-best eight in the first six innings to improve to 2-1. Looney entered in the seventh and sat down six more Hornet batters via strikeouts for his first save of the year and second of his career.
"Garret pitched ahead today and pitched like we know he is capable of," said head coach Mike McGuire. "David came in and pitched very well too, no free bases in three innings."
While the offense did leave 14 runners on base, it did feature the two through six batters all recording multiple-hit days.
Senior left-fielder Jake Hammon led the way with a 3-for-5 day, while senior center-fielder Connor Pauly, senior first baseman Trevor Snyder, senior DH Hunter Fain and sophomore third baseman Stephen Hill all registered two hits apiece. Snyder got around on his second home run of the season too, a solo shot in the fourth inning.
"Based on the number of free bases we got (five walks, four hit batters) and the errors they made (4), we probably could have driven in more runners, so it wasn't a particularly great day offensively with runners in scoring position. But we did enough to win and that's the bottom line. The scoreboard says we won."
Hammon's first-inning single to right field got the scoring going before the home team plated three more in the third. Leading just 5-1 in the late innings, the Eagles also scratched across a pair of runs each in the seventh and eighth frames.
Fain extended his OVC-best reached-base streak to 23 games, while senior shortstop Reid Leonard moved his to 17 games.
The Eagles and Hornets will wrap up the mid-week two-game set on Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET.
