Southeast baseball gets swept by Austin Peay

The Austin Peay State Governors handed the Southeast Missouri State University baseball team its third loss in three days Sunday afternoon to finish off a three game series.

The weekend marked the beginning of Ohio Valley Conference play for both teams. The Redhawks are 0-3 in the OVC while the Governors are 3-0.

"We still have a lot of season left," Southeast senior Kody Campbell said. "We feel like we're playing a little better and hopefully we can learn from it."

The Redhawks lost 11-7 Sunday afternoon in a game that they still had a chance to win in the last inning. The Redhawks went into the ninth inning down by four. The Governors closer Tyler Rogers struck out Cole Bieser and Ryan Barnes to give the Redhawks two outs to start off the inning. Rogers would walk the next batter and hit the next two making it bases loaded with third baseman Trenton Moses next to bat.

"He's a stud," Campbell said. "If we like to have anybody up there, it's Trenton."

Moses hit the ball deep into centerfield and the Governors Michael Blanchard was able speed toward the ball and made an off balance catch to kill the Redhawk's hopes.

The Redhawks had a chance to keep the game close early in the game when they were tied 4-4 in the third inning and up 7-5 in the fifth inning. After giving up numerous walks, including five in the last three innings, a lead-changing home run from Reed Harper and four different Governors getting at least two hits the game, the lead slipped away.

"Walks have been our Achilles heel this season," Southeast coach Mark Hogan said. "We have got to throw more strikeouts."

The Redhawks walked the Governors nine times and had four strikeouts. The Redhawks had decent hitting from Andy Lennington who had four hits and two runs. Derek Gibson added two hits and one run and Campbell had two hits including one home run.

"You can't give a team like Austin Peay any help," Hogan said. "We gave too many free passes."

The Redhawks now drop to 7-18 overall and 0-3 in the OVC. The next game for the Redhawks is at Arkansas State at 6:30 p.m. March 27 in Jonesboro, Ark.