Red Devils Earn Doubleheader Split at Fontbonne
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The Eureka baseball team racked up a season-high 16 hits in a 7-4 victory at Fontbonne on Monday.
It was the Red Devils' first St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference win of the spring.
The Griffins, however, came back and won the second game of the doubleheader 14-2 to take the overall series, 2-1.
Game 1: Eureka 7, Fontbonne 4
Eureka junior left-handed pitcher Ryan Bredeson (Washington, Ill./Washington) notched his first complete-game win of the season after throwing 133 pitches in nine innings. He allowed four runs on 12 hits and three walks and had three strikeouts.
Senior slugger Braden Cox (Washington, Ill./Illini Bluffs/Black Hawk) also had a big day, going 3-for-5 with a double and driving in a pair of runs. Chase Ulrich (East Peoria, Ill./East Peoria/Illinois Central College) also had three hits and recorded a team-high three RBI.
The Red Devils got off to a good start. They scored a pair of runs on four hits in the first inning and two more on three in the second.
Karter Hostetler (Morton, Ill./Morton) brought in the first run with an RBI groundout and Ulrich followed it with an RBI single.
Cox produced a two-run double the following inning to make it 4-1.
The Griffins got on the board with a solo home run by Matt Helm in the bottom of the first. They plated a second run in the third and a third in the sixth to make it a one-run game.
Eureka responded with a run on an RBI double by Garrett Flaagan (Eagle, Ill./Eagle Valley) in the seventh, and a two-run single by Ulrich in the eighth made it 7-4.
The home team got one back with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but that was it. Bredeson clinched the win with a strikeout.
Nine different Red Devils finished with at least one hit. In addition to Cox and Ulrich, Nick Rulevish (Addieville, Ill./Okawville), Cole Tanner (Bartonville, Ill./Limestone/Knox) and Flaagan all had multi-hit games. Rulevish and Flaagan both recorded a double and Flaagan had a stolen base as well.
Game 2: Fontbonne 14, Eureka 2 (7 inn.)
Between pitchers Ben Bisig and Camden Coleman, Fontbonne limited Eureka to two runs on four hits and four walks in seven innings.
The Griffins tallied six runs in the first two innings and had a 10-run lead before the Red Devils got in the board.
In the fifth, Cox blasted a two-run homer to center field to make it 10-2. It was his second home run of the season and his 11th as a Red Devil.
Fontbonne went on to notched two more runs in both the bottom of the fifth and sixth innings to top it off.
Tanner had a double, while Rulevish and David Hidden (East Peoria, Ill./East Peoria) each singled.
Up Next
After 12 straight road games, Eureka (3-10, 1-2 SLIAC) will return to Henry Sand Field on Friday to open a three-game conference series against Principia (2-6, 0-0 SLIAC) at 2 p.m.