WICHITA, Kan. ? Friday's game at the 2009 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament was played for pride's sake, as No. 2 seed Indiana State squared off against No. 5 seed Southern Illinois in each team's final game of the weekend. The Sycamores (33-21) took an early 3-0 lead, but the Salukis (24-28) battled back and earned a 10-6 win at Eck Stadium.
ISU starter Jake Petricka (7-3) breezed through the first three inning of the game allowing just one hit, but ran into some trouble in the middle three innings and suffered the loss for ISU. The right-hander allowed nine runs, only six of which were earned, on nine hits while striking out four in 5.2 innings of work. Seniors Michael Manus combined to throw the final 3.2 innings to close out the game and their ISU careers. SIU starter Andrew Dunn (8-4) picked up the win for the Salukis in in six innings of work and Bryant George picked up his eighth save of the season for SIU.
Both teams went scoreless in the first inning, but ISU broke the tie in the bottom of the second inning to take a 2-0 lead. Senior Bronco Lafrenz walked to lead off the inning and senior Brian Jett followed with a long home over the wall in left field to give ISU a 2-0 lead. The home run was Jett's 10th of the season and second of the tournament.
The Sycamores then tacked on a run in the bottom of the third inning via a solo home run off the bat of junior Nick Ciolli to extend the lead to 3-0 after three innings of play. However, that would be the last time ISU would lead as the Salukis scored five runs on four hits and an error in the top of the fourth to jump out to a 5-3 lead. SIU then added a run in the top of the fifth inning to widen that lead to 6-3.
ISU would then cut that lead to 6-4 in the bottom of the fifth inning thanks to a leadoff home run by junior Ryan Strausborger. Southern Illinois answered that run with four of their own to knock Petricka and Manus out of the game in the sixth inning and extend the lead to 10-4.
Indiana State got one of those runs back in the bottom of the sixth inning off the bat of Jett, who hit his second home run of the game and third of the tournament to cut the lead to 10-5. The Sycamores would then wrap up the scoring with a sacrifice fly off the bat of junior Luke Fieser in the bottom of the eighth inning to bring the score to its final at 10-6.
Jett finished the game 2-for-5 with the two home runs and three RBI to lead the way for ISU, while Ciolli finished with three hits including the home run and a RBI while extending his hitting streak to 20 games to end the season.
The Sycamores wrap up the 2009 season with a 33-21 overall record and a 15-7 mark in conference play. The 33 wins are the most by the Sycamores since 2003 and their second place finish in the Valley regular season was their best effort since 1998.
