Bradley pitchers bulldozed Southern Illinois hitters this weekend in the baseball team’s home opening series. The Braves took two out of three games in the series thanks to the performances on the mound.
“They located all their pitches,” head coach Elvis Dominguez said. “They had everything going.”
The performance of the weekend came in the series opener when junior Elliot Ashbeck took the mound. The right-hander threw his first career complete game shutout against the Salukis as he scattered five hits in the game while striking out nine and walking none.
“This week, he set the tone for us,” Dominguez said. “He pitched down in the zone [and] had his changeup and breaking ball and slider working. “
Ashbeck’s dominance earned him the honor of Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) pitcher of the week.
SIU’s Aaron Hauge also tossed a gem. Fortunately for the Braves, Hauge made enough mistakes for the men to score.
Hauge left a fastball over the heart of the plate to leadoff hitter Chris Godinez in the 3rd inning. Godinez drove the pitch for a triple to the left-center gap, and was the hit home on a sacrifice fly by junior Isaac Smith.
That was the only run of the game, as the Braves prevailed 1-0.
The next day proved to be similar until the 7th inning, when the Braves exploded for nine runs in one inning to win 10-0 due to the MVC run rule. Sophomore Evan Gruener led off the inning with a solo home run and ended the inning with a two RBI single.
The other highlight of the day was, once again, the performance of Bradley’s starting pitchers. Junior Steve Adkins went the distance in the game as he struck out seven and only allowed five hits.
“Steve was impressive on Saturday,” Dominguez said. “He pitched out of trouble in two innings, but overall he just threw a ton of strikes, so that’s really the key.”
The Braves went for the sweep on Sunday, but the Salukis didn’t go down without a fight. Junior Brent Stong started the game for the Braves, and although he was not at his best, he allowed just one run before exiting the game in the seventh.
However, when the bullpen came in, the Braves couldn’t hold the lead. A costly error by Godinez in the top of the 8th caused what could have been a double play to turn into a three run inning for the Salukis.
Despite Brave rallies in the bottom of the 8th and 9th, the men were not able to score another run up and lost 5-3.
Aside from the nine run inning the Braves had, they had a hard time putting runs up over the weekend. Dominguez credits the Saluki pitching.
“Their starting pitching was very dominant,” Dominguez said. “They kept us off balance the whole weekend. [Against Hauge], we just could not get comfortable in the box. He was just as good as Elliot was. Same thing on Saturday, that guy was equally as good. We just couldn’t get anything going offensively.”
Senior Isaac Smith, who leads the Braves with a .400 batting average, believes that a lot of Brave hitters had poor at bats on the weekend, which led to struggles at the plate.
“Saturday, we just didn’t do a good job, to be honest, of getting the ball in play and making them make plays,” Smith said. “On Sunday, it was just a matter of hitters not having productive at bats.”
The Braves said they are extremely confident that their hitting will continue to improve throughout the rest of the season and that they will continue their winning ways.
“The guys have great camaraderie right now,” Smith said. “I truly don’t feel like there is a ceiling for us right now, we can go as far as we want to go.”
