EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – SIUE baseball put up a big inning and used strong pitching to pick up a 9-3 win Sunday over Lindenwood at Roy E. Lee Field. The Cougars won two of three to take the first OVC series of the year.
The Cougars are now 2-1 in OVC play and 7-17 overall. Lindenwood dipped to 1-2 in the OVC and 6-17 overall.
The series win marks the first time SIUE has won its first OVC series of the year since 2020, when they played just a single league series.
"Obviously the goal every weekend is to get two out of three," SIUE Head Coach Sean Lyons said. "It's a big confidence thing for our guys to start OVC play with a series win."
Kyle Athmer made his first start of the season and put 4.1 scoreless innings. He allowed seven hits and struck out two. He did not walk a batter.
"We got a good start out of Kyle Athmer in his first start of the year," Lyons said. "He did a nice job keeping them at bay for four and some change."
SIUE got on the board in the third inning with an RBI-double from Lucas Spence. Chase Bloomer added an RBI on a groundout and Gage Franck drove in another with a single for a 3-0 SIUE lead.
Lindenwood got a leadoff home run from Bryson Arnette in the sixth inning and had runners on second and third with one out. Cougar reliever Zeus Ponder induced a pop up back to the mound on a bunt attempt, which he caught and then doubled the runner off third to end the inning.
SIUE followed with a five-run bottom of the sixth. The Cougars hit four doubles in the inning Daniel Gierer drove home a run with a double, Drew Mize plated two and Spence added his second RBI-double of the day for an 8-1 SIUE lead.
It was 8-2 when Spence singled home a run in the seventh inning. He finished the day 3-5 with three RBIs and a run scored while extending his hitting streak to nine games. Gierer was 2-4 with the RBI and a run.
"Lucas Spence had a really good day and Danny Gierer continues to swing a hot bat," Lyons said. "Those guys have done a nice job and we needed every run we got today."
Ethan Willoughby and Gage Franck also had two hits for SIUE.
Ponder worked the end of the fifth into the seventh inning. He allowed 2 runs, one earned, on three hits. He struck out one.
Liam McKillop (1-0) pitched the final three innings to earn his first win of the year. He struck out three and allowed a run on two hits.
"Liam is experienced, and he has become a guy we know we can go to in the late innings," Lyons said.
The Cougars and Lions finished with 12 hits apiece. SIUE finished with double digit hits in all three games of the series.
"We had a lot of good things from the offense," Lyons added. "They were not trying to do too much and really stayed with the middle-of-the field approach. We took some really good swings."
Josh Newell (1-2) allowed three runs, one earned, in five innings in the loss. Arnette finished 3-2 with two RBIs for the Lions.
SIUE plays a Tuesday night game at Evansville before resuming OVC play at Southeast Missouri Thursday.
