The University of Tennessee-Martin (11-21) blew out Saint Louis (17-14) 12-4 in baseball action on Tuesday afternoon. After jumping out to an early lead, the visiting Billikens surrendered 19 hits and committed three errors on the way to getting routed by the Skyhawks.
SLU scored first with a pair of runs in the top of the third inning.After two Billikens were retired, leadoff hitter Jon Guyre stroked a double to rightfield. Right fielder Ryan Crespi followed by carrying an Adam Ledlow pitch over the right-field fence for a homerun. The opposite field round-tripper gave the Billikens their only lead of the afternoon.
The Skyhawks countered by using a pair of SLU errors to notch a run in their half of the inning. The one-run third inning started a streak of four consecutive trips to the plate, where the Skyhawks would produce runs, including a five-run fourth inning.
Jason Hockaday started the Skyhawk fourth with a double down the left-field line. After he advanced to third on a groundout, Blake Turner leveled the score with an RBI double. Brett Spivy gave the Skyhawks their third double of the inning and their first lead of the game, one batter later. UTM batted around before Saint Louis reliever ET Ratte-Delorme got Hockaday to ground out.
Ratte-Delorme relieved Billikens starter Justin Wise (1-1) who saw his day come to an abrupt end after surrendering eight hits and five earned runs over 3 2/3 innings.
The Billikens tried to counter in the top of the fifth inning. Newly crowned Atlantic-10 Rookie of the Week Tom Pinnell singled and stole second base to generate a two out-rally. Guyre collected his second of three hits on the day, scoring Pinnell and cutting the Martin lead to 6-3.
After both teams managed a run in their turns at the plate, UTM increased their lead to 10-4 with a three-run sixth inning. The Skyhawks added a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth inning putting the game out of reach.
The mid-week matchup against UT-Martin gave the Billikens a brief break from conference play and marked the second half of their eight-game road trip, which continues this weekend in Cincinnati. The Bills will face conference foes Xavier for a three-game series beginning at 2 p.m. Friday.
The Bills won a pair of games in Philadelphia over the weekend to capture a conference series victory over St. Joseph’s. On Friday night, Casey Moore led the charge in a 13-3 win with five RBIs, including a three-run homerun. The route was the fourth consecutive game in which the SLU offense produced double-digit outputs in runs.
The first game of a double-header on Sunday saw the Billiken bats cool down. Saint Louis was held hitless until the ninth inning, but was kept in the game by a dominant performance from starting pitcher Ryan Bird.
The junior struck out 15 Hawks in nine innings of work. The school record for single-game strikeouts is 16, by Mike Ruhman against Westminster on March 28, 1996.
Billiken reliever Kurt Struckhoff hit a St. Joe’s batter with the bases loadedto force across the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning.
Guyre’s four hits helped the Bills bounce back in the second half of the twinbill. The 6-3 final score mirrors the Billikens conference record and leaves them in a tie with Dayton for fourth place in the Atlantic 10.
