CONWAY, Ark. – Southeast Missouri (5-12) dropped a 7-3 decision to Southland Conference foe Central Arkansas (8-8) Tuesday night at Bear Stadium.
SEMO fell behind early and stranded 12 baserunners, including two in the first, fourth, seventh and eighth innings.
UCA took a quick lead in the bottom of the first inning. With two outs and a runner on, Keaton Presley hit a home run over the left field wall to put the Bears up 2-0.
The Bears stretched their lead in the third inning where they used four hits to push across two more runs. T.J. Black led things off with a single to left center and scored on Josh Somdecerff's double down the left field line. Somdecerff touched home on a single by Tyler Smith giving UCA a 4-0 advantage.
SEMO got on the board in the top of the fourth inning.
Tristen Gagan singled and
Justin Dirden walked. Later in the inning,
Alex Nielsen knocked in Dirden on a two-out single to right center making it a 4-1 game.
A single by Hunter Strong and a pair of errors on the same play allowed Rigo Aguilar to score the first of two UCA runs in the bottom half of the fourth. Somdecerff followed the wild play up with a single to left field to score Strong for another unearned tally as the Bears increased their lead to 6-1.
Justin Dirden launched his first career home run to right field narrowing UCA's lead to 6-2 in the top of the sixth.
SEMO continued to chip away at the Bears lead in the top of the seventh, where it loaded the bases with one out.
Peyton Faulkner walked and advanced to second on a single by
Chase Urhahn. Following a
Trevor Ezell strikeout, Gagan singled. Dirden flied out to right and Faulkner scored to trim UCA's margin to 6-3.
Presley hit his second home run, this time to left, capping the Bears 7-3 win.
Freshman Gavin Stone (1-0) picked up the win. Stone recorded four strikeouts and allowed two runs in four innings. Mark Moyer was credited with his first save of the season.
Ryan Losman (0-2) suffered the loss. Losman allowed four runs on five hits in 2.1 innings. It was his first start of the season.
Logan Winder pitched well out of the Redhawks bullpen. Winder struck out four, allowed two runs and scattered three hits in 3.2 innings. At one time, he retired nine-straight UCA hitters.
Gagan went 3-for-5 to lead SEMO, which notched seven hits. Urhahn followed with two.
Strong, Somdecerff and Presley combined for six of the Bears 10 hits at the top of UCA's lineup.
The Redhawks and Bears conclude their two-game series at 3 p.m., CT, Wednesday.
