at Southern Illinois 3, Bradley 2
at Southern Illinois 3, Bradley 0 – 5 innings
CARBONDALE, IL – Mother Nature struck again. After Bradley had pulled into a 3-3 tie in the sixth inning of the deciding game of its final series at Southern Illinois, weather forced an early end of the game at Itchy Jones Stadium and the Salukis were credited with a 3-0 victory in five innings to complete a 2-games-to-1 series win.
All three games in the series were interrupted by weather, including Friday's second game, in which Southern Illinois rallied for a 3-2 victory upon its resumption Saturday afternoon.
With the regular season complete, Bradley (30-17, 11-10 MVC) will return to action as the No. 3 seed in next week's Missouri Valley Conference Baseball Championship at Dallas Baptist. The Braves will take on sixth-seeded Illinois State in the opening round of the double-elimination tournament. The other two teams in the Bradley's pool will be No. 7 seed Valparaiso and the No. 2 seed, either Missouri State or Dallas Baptist (MSU held a 10-4 lead in the seventh inning Saturday with the winner earning the No. 1 seed for the tourney).
Bradley took 2-of-3 games in road series at both Illinois State and Valparaiso during the season, while Dallas Baptist swept a 3-game series at Dozer Park and has won seven straight in the series since Bradley's walk-off win on ESPNU to cap the 2016 series between the two teams.
Series Game 2: SIU 3, Bradley 2
In the second suspended game of the series, the teams resumed action Saturday with the score tied, 1-1, and Southern Illinois with runners at first and second and one out in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Senior RHP,
Alex Gray, who started the fifth inning in relief of
Mitch Janssen, returned to the mound Saturday and got out of the fifth-inning jam with a fly out and a pick off. Gray allowed only one more hit in his 3.0 innings of scoreless relief.
The Braves took a 2-1 lead when
Keaton Rice led off the seventh inning with his first career home run, but could not add to the lead, despite putting five more runners on base in the late innings.
Southern Illinois forged a 2-2 tie in the eighth inning on Logan Blackfan's 2-out RBI double, then scored the walk-off winner in the ninth after Hunter Anderson walked and pinch runner Addison Fugitt came home on Jared Kengott's 1-out double. Freshman
Brooks Gosswein (2-2) suffered the loss.
Series Game 3: SIU 3, Bradley 0 - 5 innings
Blackfan came up big again in the final game of the series, launching a 2-run home run in the fifth inning. It turned out, however, the Salukis got all of the scorig they needed in the third inning when Niko Vasic lined a RBI triple down the right field line off Bradley starter
Sam Lund (6-4).
Limited to one hit in five scoreless innings to start the game, Bradley got the three runs back in the sixth, starting with
Andy Shadid's leadoff homer.
Brendan Dougherty followed the Shadid blast by reaching on an error.
Derek Bangert doubled Dougherty home and later scored the tying run on a passed ball.
The three runs were wiped out by weather, however. Unable to complete the home half of the sixth inning after a lightning strike halted play, the status of the game reverted back to the end of the fifth..
