June 5, 2010
Box Score |
Quotes |
Photo Gallery 
LOUISVILLE - Saint Louis' season came to a close Saturday with an 8-3 loss to Illinois State in an elimination game at the NCAA Baseball Championship's Louisville Regional.
The Atlantic 10 Conference champion Billikens end the year with a 33-29 mark, which is a school record for wins. It is the first back-to-back 30 win season in program history and the third year in which the Bills have increased their win total from the previous season.
Illinois State (32-23) advances to Sunday's action where it will play either Vanderbilt or Louisville.
The Billikens managed 10 hits in the game, two off the bats of J.D. Dunn, Danny Brock, Myers and Ben Braaten all drove in runs for the Billikens.
ISU slugged five home runs, accounting for all but one of its eight tallies. Freshman Alex Alemann was charged with the loss after allowing four runs on six hits in 3-1/3 innings.
SLU scored the first run of the game in the bottom of the first. Cody Cotter led off with a walk, and Dunn roped a base hit up the middle to put two runners on with none out. The Billikens ran into a bit of misfortune when Brock lined a shot back up the middle. It deflected off the pitcher right to the ISU shortstop, who started a double play. But Cotter advanced to third on the grounder, and came home on a clutch two-out single by Jon Myers to give SLU an early 1-0 advantage.
Illinois State responded in the top of the second when Evan Kohli belted a solo home run down the right-field line to put the Redbirds on the board. ISU benefitted from the long ball later in the inning as well, when Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year Kevin Tokarski lifted an opposite-field, three-run homer to right to put the Redbirds on top 4-1.
Alemann ran into some trouble in the top of the fourth and left the game with one out and runners on second and third. In came reliever Jason Bell, who proceeded to get out of the inning thanks in part to a diving snag by Billiken shortstop Mike Levine.
After getting out the jam, the Billiken bats went to work in the bottom-half of the half. Myers started the inning with a single up the middle. Braaten then belted a double to center that nearly left the park, allowing Myers to score to trim the SLU deficit to two at 4-2.
The Billikens again flashed the leather in the top of the fifth when left-fielder Cody Cotter ran onto a fly ball and laid out for the diving snag. In the top of the sixth, Illinois State had runners on second and third, but Bell got out of the inning by getting a lazy fly to right.
ISU's Ty Wiesemeyer increased the Redbirds' lead to 5-2 in the top of the seventh with a solo homer to right, but SLU got that run back in the bottom-half of the inning. Levine led off with a single up the middle, and ended up on second following a Cotter groundout. Later in the frame, Brock stroked a two-out single to left to send Levine home and make the score 5-3 Illinois State.
But Illinois State answered with back-to-back homers in the eighth off the bats of Kohli and Zach Amrein to stretch the Redbird lead to 7-3, with all their runs at that point coming on home runs. ISU also received and RBI single by Tokarski in the inning to increase its advantage to 8-3.
Pinch-hitter Connor Gandossy and Dunn both had one-out hits in the top of the ninth, but ISU retired the next two batters to advance.
