WICHITA, Kan. – The Illinois State baseball team climbed above .500 and won its first series against Wichita State in nine years with a 10-5 victory over the host Shockers Saturday at Eck Stadium's Tyler Field.
Jacob Hendren earned his staff-leading sixth win of the season and the bottom four hitters in Illinois State's lineup provided eight hits and six RBIs in the contest. Sean Beesley, Joe Kelch, Jean Ramirez and Dennis Colon tallied two hits apiece for the Redbirds, and both Kelch and Colon homered in the winning effort.
The Redbirds (16-15, 3-5 MVC) will go for the series sweep Sunday at 1 p.m.
"A good offense has to have balance. You can't just rely on your big boys at the top of the order to produce runs," said Illinois State head coach Bo Durkac. "For our 6-7-8-9 guys in order to each have two hits, that was pretty impressive."
Wichita State (13-21, 5-3) took an early lead with a solo home run from Gunnar Troutwine in the second inning, but the Redbirds tied it in the fourth with a ground-rule double from Ryan Koziol that scored Jared Hendren. Illinois State took the lead just moments later when Kelch hit a two-out, two-run single to plate Mason Snyder and Koziol.
Troutwine hit his second home run of the day – a two-run shot to left field – in the bottom of the inning. The Redbirds got one of those runs back, however, with a solo homer from Colon in the fifth.
Run-scoring singles from Beesley and Colon scored Snyder and Koziol in the sixth inning, and Beesley later scored on a balk, to rebuild the Redbirds' lead. The Shockers cut the ISU lead back down to three with a sacrifice fly from Mikel Mucha in the bottom half.
Snyder added a two-run home run in the seventh inning, following Jared Hendren's leadoff walk. Kelch added a solo homer to give the Redbirds a six-run lead.
The Shockers added a run in the bottom of the eighth with a bases-loaded walk against Jack Czeszewski, but Redbird reliever Jake Sale came on and recorded back-to-back strikeouts to get out of the jam.
The hosts scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth, with two-out, run-scoring singles from Sam Hilliard and Troutwine, but Koziol came on to record the final out and earn his second save of the season.
Jacob Hendren allowed four runs on seven hits over six innings of work Saturday. He struck out seven. Czeszewski pitched 1.1 innings of one-run ball, before Sale got the Redbirds out of the jam in the eighth. Sale was charged with all three runs in the ninth before Koziol closed out the game.
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