North Park Takes Down Eureka, 19-6

EUREKA – After putting up big numbers over the weekend, the Eureka baseball team found itself on the wrong end of a lopsided game on Tuesday.

North Park put together rally after rally in a 19-6 win at Henry Sand Field.

The Vikings constructed a 10-run lead in the first six innings, and threatened to put the game away early, but the Red Devils scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth to keep it going. Nathan Garard (Gibson City, Ill./Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley) homered for the first time this season and the second time in his career, and Demetrius Schupp (La Salle, Ill./St. Bede Academy/Illinois Valley) delivered a bases-loaded RBI single to make it 13-5.

The visitors then tacked on six more runs in the last two innings, while Eureka scored its final run on an RBI single by Chase Ulrich (East Peoria, Ill./East Peoria/Illinois Central College) in the eighth.

Eureka finished with six runs on 11 hits.

Urlich went 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI. Brandt King (Stillman Valley, Ill./Stillman Valley) also went 3-for-4, Schupp added two hits, and Cole Tanner (Bartonville, Ill./Limestone/Knox) recorded an RBI single to center to put the Red Devils on the board

In the third, Braden Cox (Washington, Ill./Illini Bluffs/Black Hawk) blasted a two-run home run to right-center – his third bomb of the season and briefly made it a two-run game. The Vikings answered by scoring the next eight runs.

Both the Red Devils and the Vikings employed six pitchers in the game.

Eureka (6-11, 4-2 St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) will jump back into conference play on Saturday with a doubleheader at Spalding (12-5, 1-2 SLIAC).