SIU victim to walk-off grand slam at Austin Peay

CLARKSVILLE, TENN. - The Southern Illinois baseball team was a strike away from victory, but Austin Peay pinch hitter Matt Joslin hit a walk-off grand slam, and the Governors prevailed, 12-9. The teams split the in-season home-and-home series.

The back-and-forth game started with three runs for Peay (19-16) in the first inning, but the Salukis (17-16) answered right back with a four-run second inning to take a 4-3 lead. The Gove took a 5-4 lead with a pair of unearned runs in the bottom of the second. SIU tied the game in the third and took the lead in the fifth. SIU maintained that lead until Joslin's walk-off in the bottom of the ninth.

"First of all, I'm proud of our guys," SIU head coach Ken Henderson said. "We didn't play well, but, man, did we compete. Coming off a tough weekend, we worked really hard the last couple days to turn the page. We competed our rear ends off, but we're not playing great baseball. Right now, things aren't going our way, but that's the nature of the game. If we keep competing and battling like that, it will go our way."

Coming off a weekend in which SIU was swept at Bradley, SIU took advantage of a wild Austin Peay pitching staff that issued 10 walks in the game. SIU scored its first five runs on just one hit. Grey Epps, who was playing in his hometown of Clarksville, Tenn., went 2-for-3 with a home run, a double, two stolen bases, two RBIs and two runs scored.

Will LaRue provided the defensive highlight by robbing a home run in the seventh inning, but SIU committed a pair of errors that led to three Austin Peay runs in the early part of the game. Offensively, the Salukis ended up leaving eight runners on base in the game.

"At the end of the day, we didn't execute well enough," Henderson said. "We made a couple mistakes on defense, and we didn't execute a couple pitches. We had a chance to score a lot of runs and left them out there."

SIU held its lead in the middle innings thanks to three no-hit innings from Sam Grace, who issued just one walk in his outing while striking out three. Southern's running game was also effective, going 6-for-6 stealing bases in the game.

The loss stretched SIU's season-long losing streak to four game heading into a weekend series vs. Illinois State at Itchy Jones Stadium. Friday's first game is set for 6:30 p.m. Saturday's game will start at 2 p.m. and Sunday's finale is set for 1 p.m.

"To be one strike away from winning and have that happen, it's tough, but we have tough kids," Henderson said. "I know they will rebound from it."