Box Score

St. Louis, Mo. (April 30, 2002) - The Southeast Missouri State Indians baseball program rattled off its sixth win in a row as a game-winning RBI single by senior centerfielder Vern Hatton in the tenth took out the Bills 5-4 in St. Louis Tuesday. Hatton was also named OVC Player of the Week today by the conference office in Brentwood, Tenn.

The Tribe got two runs in the second, one in the third, one and one in the sixth and tenth to put away the Bills. Junior shortstop Zach Borowiak provided the sparkplug for the Indians as he had a career-high five hits in a 5-6 performance. He hit his 12th double of the season tying him with Hatton for the team-lead. Junior catcher Tristen McDonald hit his fourth home run of the year, an opposite field job in the second. Hatton had three hits, while junior third baseman Denver Stuckey and freshman first baseman Eric Hoffman had two apiece.

The Tribe started junior Jim Beever and he went 2.2 innings allowing three runs and striking out two. Junior Donnie Fuller came in to relieve and threw five innings of one run ball including four strikeouts and retiring nine batters in a row at one point. Stuckey and junior Tim Alvarez also contributed to the pitching duties with Alvarez picking up the extra-innings win to move to 3-0 on the season.

Southeast started the scoring as McDonald led off the second inning with a home run right over the foul pole in right field. The run and the eventual win moved SEMO's record when scoring first to 9-0. Hopkins then singled to left and was sacrificed over to second by junior right fielder Ryan Govek. Hopkins scored on a Hoffman double later in the inning.

The Indians got one more run in the third as Hatton and McDonald started the inning with back-to-back singles. Hatton would later score as Hopkins would ground back to the pitcher in what looked to be a tailor made 163 double play. The shortstop, however, was pulled off the bag at second, and the relay to first was not in time to catch Hopkins and went down the right field line scoring Hatton.

Saint Louis got tree back in the third to tie the score at three, but SEMO would re-gain the lead in the sixth. The inning started with a walk to Alvarez. He was moved up to second on a sacrifice bunt by Stuckey. Borowiak then came up and doubled down the right field line scoring Alvarez from second.

SLU tied the game again in the eighth as third baseman Drew Eder doubled to left center scoring second baseman Jake Friederich.

Both teams would stay scoreless until the top of the tenth as Alvarez led off with a walk to start the inning. The SLU pitcher then struck out the next two batters bring up Borowiak who promptly nailed his fifth hit of the day to left center advancing Alvarez to third. Hatton then delivered a clutch single to left field to drive in Alvarez for the eventual winning run.

Southeast left a team-high 16 runners on base for the day while getting 16 hits off Billiken pitching. The Tribe's pen combined for 7.1 innings of four hit, one run pitching on the day.

Hatton extended his hitting streak to 21 games today and his performance last week against Oklahoma State and Austin Peay garnered the senior Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Week honors. He hit .545 on the week with six hits, six runs scored, two homers and six RBI's. He collected 12 total bases, slugged 1.091, and had a on-base percentage of .625.

The Tribe now prepares for a weekend road trip to Cookeville, Tenn. to take on the Golden Eagles of Tennessee Tech. The Eagles currently sit at second to last in the conference at a record of 21-21 overall and 4-7 in the conference. They will play two games on Saturday starting at 2 p.m. and a single on Sunday starting at 2 p.m. also.