ST. CLOUD, Minn. – The No. 4-seed Southern Arkansas baseball team defeated No. 3-seed Emporia State by a score of 9-2 in the opening round of the 2015 Central Region Tournament on Friday afternoon at Joe Faber Field in St. Cloud, Minn.
With the win, the Muleriders (40-16) advance in the winner's bracket and will take on No. 2-seed Minnesota State-Mankato at approximately 7:30 p.m. later on Friday evening. MSU-Mankato won their first game of the tournament as well as they beat No. 5-seed Missouri Southern State 3-1 earlier Friday morning.
In SAU's game against Emporia, the Muleriders jumped out to a 5-0 lead through the first three innings of play as they scored a run in the first and plated a pair of runs in the second and third innings respectively. The tally in the first came on a sacrifice fly off the bat by
Billy Germaine and
Carver Rademacher's two-run homer off the foul pole in left field capped the Muleriders' initial surge.
The early 5-0 lead was in support of starter
Landon Simpson, who was named to the American Baseball Coach's Association (ABCA) All-Central Region Second-Team during the game. Simpson, now an all-region starting pitcher from two national baseball media outlets, kept the Hornets (39-15) off the scoreboard until the bottom of the fifth when ESU's Jordan Hodges doubled home Cody Bobbit to make it a 5-1 game.
In the next half inning, however, the Muleriders added three runs on two hits and two Emporia errors to extend their lead out to seven runs, 8-1. In the top of the eighth, Rademacher added a run of insurance as he singled into centerfield to score Germaine, who doubled into the left-centerfield gap in the at-bat prior.
The Hornets would put together a two-out rally off of Simpson in the bottom of the eighth, but were only able to push across one run as Simpson induced a flyout to escape the frame.
After getting out of the eighth, Simpson gave way to senior reliever
Jared Webb in the bottom of the ninth. Webb was sharp in his lone inning of work as he pitched a clean ninth inning to secure the Mulerider victory.