PDF Box Score
 
LORMAN, Miss. – The Southeast Missouri baseball team defeated Alcorn State Thursday evening, 13-6. It was an evening of firsts as a number of Redhawks made their collegiate debuts against the Braves.
 
Southeast Missouri improves to 3-1 on the young season while Alcorn is now 1-3.
 
Alcorn got on the board in the bottom of the first inning. Moses Charles drew a leadoff walk, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout, and scored on a passed ball to take a 1-0 lead on Southeast early.
 
The Redhawks found a lead in the top of the second inning. Dalton Hewitt and Andy Lennington each drew one-out walks to put runners on. A pair of wild pitches tied the game for Southeast. With two out, Scott Mitchell doubled over the right fielder's head to score Lennington and give Southeast a 2-1 lead.  Two consecutive hit batsmen loaded the bases. Trevor Ezell drew a walk to extend the lead to 3-1 in the second.
 
An RBI single by Alcorn's Cedric Walker in the second inning narrowed the Redhawk lead to 3-2.
 
Hewitt led off the third with his second walk of the game. A single down the third base line by Lennington and a walk to Branden Boggetto loaded the bases. Mitchell tallied his second RBI of the evening when he drew a bases-loaded walk, putting the Redhawks back up by a pair of runs, 4-2, in the third.
 
Garrett Gandolfo recorded his first RBI as a Redhawk in the fourth, scoring Ezell from first with a double down the right field line and putting the Redhawks up 5-2.
 
Earl Burl drew a leadoff walk in fourth. Burl stole second and advanced on a failed attempt to catch him stealing at second. He scored on a sac fly to make it 5-3.
 
Lennington hit a solo home run to lead off the fifth inning, his first of the season, to make it 6-3.
 
The Redhawks opened the floodgates in the sixth inning. Southeast scored seven runs on only five hits. In all, 12 men went to the plate in the inning. The inning was highlighted by a two-run home run by Gandolfo to start the scoring. Southeast led 13-3 after five and a half innings.
 
With a Brave runner on second, Lennington overthrew the ball on a pickoff attempt, allowing the runner to score. After six innings, Southeast led 13-4.
 
Alcorn plated two more runs in the ninth on a pair of bases-loaded walks to being the final score to 13-6.
 
Six players made their Redhawk debuts Thursday. Zach Moore (1-0), who earned his first career victory, pitched two and two-thirds innings, allowing only one run, struck out two and walked two. Redshirt freshman Matthew Wade came in and struck out the side in the seventh inning in his first appearance. Wesley Pyles, Joey Burris and Riley Calvird all pitched for the first time, while  Broc Kreitler recorded his first career hit.
 
"Zach threw the ball really well and so did Matt," said head coach Steve Bieser. "It was great to see lots of new guys on the mound and get their Division I debut under their belts. For those guys, it was the highlight of a night that was pretty slow overall. We didn't open anything up until the sixth inning and that's when the game really got going."
 
Lennington finished 2-for-3 with three runs scored and a pair of RBI on the evening. The Redhawks out-hit Alcorn 9-3 and committed a pair of errors. Alcorn had four errors in the game.
 
"We started having better at bats towards the middle part of the game and it was good to see Gandolfo really show us what he can do," Bieser added. "He's a good hitter and hopefully he will continue to be a force in the middle of the lineup.
 
The Redhawks will travel to Lake Charles, Louisiana for a three-game series against Illinois State. Game one of the series will be at 7 p.m. Friday. The Redhawks and Redbirds will play a doubleheader Saturday at 3 p.m.