The last time the Saint Louis University baseball team won a conference series was in May 1999. Until the Billikens took two of three from 15th-ranked Tulane last weekend.
SLU defeated Eastern Illinois yesterday 11-6 at the Billiken Sports Complex.
The Billikens were magnificent in the three games against Tulane. They got masterful pitching performances from juniors Ben Hutton and Wes Jaillet.
In addition to that, the Bills’ bats came to life, and all seemed to be fitting together. Head coach Bob Hughes said, “We really put something together this weekend. We played with emotion and it really paid off.”
The Bills took the first two games of the series, 8-5 and 10-6, before dropping an 11-9 nail biter.
On Friday, it was Hutton that led the way. The junior righty went 7 2/3, surrendering three runs while striking out nine. Hutton was superb and pitched his way to his second-straight Conference Pitcher of the Week honor.
Hutton said, “It is a great honor to be pitcher of the week again. It is indicative of how well the team has been playing, to get this kind of recognition you need to win.”
Numerous times in the game it seemed like the Green Wave were ready to knock Hutton out. Every time Hutton was on the ropes, he fought back gallantly. “I had some really stressful innings, but I made some good pitches and got some great defensive plays behind me,” said Hutton.
After Friday night’s pitching performance, it seemed like the Bills pitching could only go downhill. But on Saturday, Jaillet put forth his own gutsy performance. He went all nine innings and threw excess of 145 pitches en route to the victory.
Jaillet gave up six runs on nine hits but struck out a career high 10. From the sixth inning on, it seemed like Jaillet was ready to be taken out. But in every inning he found a way to get people out. Hughes stuck with his hurler, and that decision turned out to be ingenious. Somehow, Jaillet fought fatigue and the Green Wave, and managed to hang on for the victory.
In the weekend series, the pitching wasn’t the only part of the Bills that got hot. Last week, sophomore catcher Andrew Slania put together his best hitting performance of the year. Slania went 7-14 with three homeruns and seven RBIs. It was Slania’s breakout performance that the Billikens had been waiting for.
Slania said, “I have been seeing the ball real big; I have been more aggressive and swinging harder.”
The other offensive explosion came from senior second baseman Nick Steiner. Steiner had two big three-run home runs and 10 RBI in the Tulane series. Steiner said, “I got some fastballs on the inner half of the plate; the book on me has been off speed and away. They came inside, and I hit the ball hard.”
On Sunday, the Bills’ pitching faltered, but the offense was still there as the Bills fell 11-9. The Billikens continued to pound the baseball in the loss.
The wins over Tulane pushed the Bills’ conference record to 4-5 and put them in a tie for 6th place. There are three teams ahead of the Billikens by only one game at 5-4.
Yesterday, the Billikens returned to action to take on EIU. The Bills topped the Panthers 11-6.
Brad Wehrfritz got the win and improved his record to 2-3. Wehrfritz was not overly efficient with his pitches, but got the job done, only giving up one run in five innings of work.
The Bills’ offense continued to run on all cylinders as they had 12 hits and scored in each of the final five innings. In contrast to the weekend, the Bills’ hits were mostly solid singles and lots of Texas leaguers. The Bills didn’t get the big blast that they had against Tulane, but nevertheless it was equally efficient.
The win over the Panthers pushed the Bills record to 14-15 on the year. This weekend, the Billikens will take on Southern Miss in another Conference USA series. In scouting the Golden Eagles, Hughes said, “They haven’t swung the bats real well, but their pitching has been outstanding.”
The Billiken players agreed, “They are a tough team. They look to be really aggressive. We are going to have to fight hard to get into the top four in the Conference,” said Slania.
Perhaps Steiner summed up the importance of this weekend the best: “We need to win one or two, because we have been terrible on the road. Right now, we are sitting good in Conference, but we really need to keep that going.”
