Brown Tosses Gem - Racers Survive in Series Finale - Murray State University Athletics

Sunday, May 14

Morehead, Ky.

Noon

Murray State

25-26, 13-14

Morehead State

32-19, 16-10

Murray State

Morehead State

Photo by: Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

Brown Tosses Gem - Racers Survive in Series Finale

5/14/2017 4:00:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Game Notes (.pdf)Live Coverage Links

Luke Brown pitched a gem, recording the best outing of his young career and Murray State survived a furious ninth-inning rally by Morehead State to escape with a 12-11 victory Sunday afternoon in the series finale with the Eagles.

Brown, who held the Eagles (32-19, 16-10 OVC) hitless through 5.2 innings, allowed just three hits and one run over seven innings of work while striking out five batters. The seven innings pitched are a career-best for Brown and the five strikeouts ties his career-best.

Morehead was able to make things extremely interesting in the ninth as the Racers (25-26, 13-14 OVC) carried a 12-2 lead into the bottom half of the inning. The Eagles would get back-to-back home runs to cut the MSU lead to 12-8 and would then get a triple down the line to cut the margin to just one before Alec Whaley got a game-inning strikeout on the nation's leading home run hitter, Niko Hulsizer. Whaley would record his second save of the season for his efforts.

MSU would hit multiple homers for the third consecutive game in the series, thanks to the hitter-friendly confines of Allen Field. Davis Sims was able to belt his ninth and 10^th homers of the season as he went 3-for-4 with five RBIs, three runs scored and a double in the win. Kipp Moore had the other home run for the Racers as he went 2-for-5 with three runs.

Jaron Robinson joined Sims with a team-high three-hit day, as he was 3-of-5 at the plate with a double, an RBI and a run. Jack Hranec and Ryan Perkins also each went 2-for-5 in the win as MSU pounded out 16 hits on the day.

For the third game in a row in the series, the Racers were able to score in the top of the first as Sims brought home Adam Bauer with a sacrifice fly RBI to center. In the second, Perkins made it 2-0 with an RBI single. In the fifth, MSU was able to get some breathing room with a four-run inning. All four of the Racers' runs in the inning were unearned as the Morehead shortstop committed three consecutive errors in the inning.

The Eagles were able to break-up Brown's no-hit bid in the sixth and score a run to make it 6-1. In the seventh and eighth, the Racers offense came alive with three runs in each of the innings. Sims' first homer of the game made it 8-1 with his two-run shot in the seventh and three batters later, Aaron Bence was able to get a groundout to bring home Moore from third to make it 9-1.

In the eighth, Sims and Moore went back-to-back with long balls to push the score to 12-1. The Eagles were able to score one run in the bottom half of the inning to make it 12-2 before going on their big ninth-inning run.

MSU now returns to action Tuesday for its last non-conference action of the season when the Racers travel to Memphis for a 6 p.m. contest. It will also be the final road matchup of the regular season for the Racers.