Pogue’s Career Night Lifts Racers Over Southern Indiana

Wednesday, April 3

Evansville, Ind.

6 p.m.

Murray State

19-10

Southern Indiana

13-16

Murray State

Southern Indiana

Photo by: David Eaton-Murray State Athletics

Pogue’s Career Night Lifts Racers Over Southern Indiana

4/3/2024 10:39:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

Malik Pogue recorded a career-high nine strikeouts in Wednesday’s win over the Screaming Eagles.

By: Drew Parsley

The Racers split the two-game midweek series with Southern Indiana after winning Wednesday's game by a score of 13-6 at USI Baseball Field in Evansville, Indiana.

Carson Garner opened the scoring for Murray State with a solo blast in the first inning for his 12th homer of the season. Taylor Howell doubled the early lead in the second with a solo homer of his own for his 10th this year.

The Screaming Eagles answered back with two runs in the bottom of the second on a solo home run and a run scored on a sacrifice bunt. USI then took the lead in the third inning with a three-run home run to make it a 5-2 game going into the fourth.

After a scoreless fourth inning, the Racers put up runs in five consecutive innings. In the fifth, two runs were scored on an RBI base hit from Preston Shelton and an RBI on a fielder's choice hit by Drew Vogel. Riley Hawthorne tied the game at 5 runs each with an RBI base hit of his own in the sixth and three more runs were scored in the seventh off of two USI errors.

Jonathan Hogart added an RBI in the eighth after getting hit by a pitch, and Hawthorne and Dan Tauken each scored a run in the ninth on a throwing error. The four-run frame was capped off on a two-run double from Garner to make it a 13-6 ball game entering the bottom of the frame.

Malik Pogue had himself a stellar performance out of the bullpen, tossing 4 1/3 innings allowing just one run on five hits, three walks and recording a new career-high nine strikeouts. All three outs of the fifth and sixth innings were strikeouts for Pogue, punching out four consecutive batters through the two frames. The redshirt senior earned his first win of the season and third of his career.

Allen Roulette earned his first save as a Racer after throwing 2 1/3 scoreless innings with three strikeouts.

Garner, Howell, Tauken, Hawthorne and Shelton all recorded multi-hit games. Garner picked up his 10th multi-hit game of the season, Tauken his ninth, and Howell and Hawthorne each their eighth game with at least two hits.

Howell's four runs on Wednesday is his most in a single game as a Racer. Garner picked up his fourth game of the year with at least three runs driven in while extending his reached-base streak to a team-high 20 games and his hitting streak to six.

Murray State returns to conference play when they host Indiana State for a three-game series April 5-7 at Reagan Field in Murray, Kentucky.

For more information on the Murray State baseball program, visit GoRacers.com or @RacersBaseball on Instagram and X.