Austin Peay State University Baseball eliminated from OVC Tournament by Southeast Missouri

Austin Peay Sports Information

Jackson, TN – The improbable became the impossible as midnight struck on the Austin Peay State University baseball season, Saturday night, in an Ohio Valley Conference tourney elimination game at the Ballpark at Jackson.

After finishing a game at 2:48am, Thursday, and playing a 4-hour, 44-minute dramatic 13-inning game earlier Saturday, the physically-taxed Govs ran out of magic and pitching late against No. 1 seed Southeast Missouri, falling 10-4.

The loss ended APSU’s season at 30-23 while Southeast Missouri improves to 34-23 and will face tourney unbeaten Jacksonville State, noon, Sunday, in the first league title game. If a second game is needed, it is expected to start at 4:00pm.

The Governors turned to redshirt freshman Josh Rye to start the game, the same lefthander who didn’t return from an upper-body injury until mid-May after two months on the shelf. But Rye provided the Govs more than they could have expected, tossing 5.1 innings, allowing just three earned runs while throwing a season-high 83 pitches.

The Governors took a 4-3 in the bottom of the first when Chase Hamilton laced a bases-clearing triple into the right-centerfield gap. But Garrett Gandolfo led off the SEMO sixth with a triple into the left center field gap.

Lacking pitching depth, head coach Travis Janssen turned to junior Alex Robles, who started and won Wednesday’s late-night affair in 100-plus pitching effort. Robles got out of the sixth allowing the tying run to score and kept SEMO at bay in the seventh.

But the eighth inning was a different story as Chris Osborne led off with a triple and scored the go-ahead run on a Brian Boggetto single to center.

But the Redhawk uprising didn’t end there against a tiring Robles. Hunter Leeper capped the inning by lacing a three-run double down the left field line. That was more than enough for dart-throwing lefty reliever Jake Busiek. Relieving starter Adam Pennington in the fifth inning, Busiek (2-2) allowed just two hits and no walks while fanning six over the final 4.2 innings to gain the victory.

Junior second baseman Garrett Copeland smacked two balls off the left-field wall during his first two trips to the plate, finishing with three hits. He scored the game’s first run in the opening inning on a Hamilton single—the Govs’ right fielder finished with two hits and four RBI for the contest.