MOUNTAINEER BASEBALL

Story by Aric Thomas
(03-28-08)

Eastern Opens Conference Play 2-0

With a double header sweep over Rose State College, the Eastern Oklahoma State College baseball team (25-7 / 2-0) began Bi-State Conference play 2-0.

In game one, Eastern committed three errors in the 1st inning to fall behind 2-0.  Starting pitcher Chance Deason held Rose State scoreless over the next four innings.  The Mountaineer offense came to life in the 3rd inning.  They scored a single run in the 3rd, 4th and 5th innings to take a 3-2 lead.  Eastern got on the board after a lead off single by Brady White, a sacrifice bunt by Tommie Johnson and a one out double by Jeff Scardino.  In the 4th, Casey Gibson walked, moved to second on a ground out, stole third base and then scored on Casey McCollum’s ground ball to the shortstop that was mishandled.  In the 5th inning, Scardino reached base on a fielder’s choice and after a Gunner Glad single, he scored on Gibson’s two out single.  However, Rose State tied the game in the top of the 6th inning.  In the bottom of the 6th, Dearth Parker led off with a single and then stole second base.  After two outs, Blake Mounce stepped to the plate and blasted his 4th home run of the season to give Eastern a 5-3 lead.  Nate Pettus came on to throw a scoreless 7th inning to pick up his seventh save of the year.  Currently with seven saves, Pettus is tied for the most saves in the country.  Deason got the win and improved to 7-1 on the season.

Game two saw the Mountaineer offense come to life in a 12-2 victory.  Nate Pettus did it with his arm in game one, but did it with his bat in game two.  Pettus went 4-5 on the day and he hit his 8th, 9th and 10th home runs of the season.  He finished the day with three runs scored and four RBI’s.  Steve Irvine was 3-5 with his 5th home run of the year, three runs scored and 3 RBI’s.  Gunner Glad was 3-5 also and he blasted his 8th home run on the season.  Glad also scored twice, drove in three runs and stole two bases.  Casey Gibson and Tommie Johnson had two hits a piece.  Johnson hit a double, scored twice, drove in two runs and had a sacrifice bunt.  The Mountaineers finished with 12 runs on 16 hits and hit five home runs in the game.  Overlooked in the offensive performance was the outstanding start on the mound by Josh Miller.  In his longest outing of the season, Miller picked up the win in seven innings of work allowing just five hits, two runs only one of which was earned and struck out a career high nine batters.  With the win, Miller improved to 4-2 on the season.  Seth Terry came on to throw a scoreless 8th inning.

The two teams will hook up again on Saturday at Rose State.  The double header will begin at 1:00 pm.