OZARK, Mo.- On a day that saw four members of the Drury baseball team graduate from the university, the Panthers defeated Illinois-Springfield 10-4 on Saturday at U.S. Baseball Park in Ozark to advance to the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament championship game on Sunday. Drury will play either Saint Joseph’s or Quincy at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday for the conference title.
The Panthers’ win improved them to 36-17. The Prairie Stars fell to 33-21 and the loss eliminated them from the tournament.
Drury took a 2-0 lead in the third inning as Caleb Essick hit a sacrifice fly that drove home Devan O’Bryan. Ryan Colombo then put the Panthers up by two with an RBI-single.
Drury scored three runs an inning later as Ryan Kayhill and Dylan Bradshaw hit back-to-back home runs. Kayhill hit a two-run shot over the wall in left to put the Panthers ahead 4-0. Bradshaw followed by bouncing a homer off of the video board in right field giving Drury a 5-0 advantage.
Bradshaw went 3 for 4 for Drury with three runs, two RBI’s, a double, a walk and the home run was his fourth of the season.
“We were able to work some counts early and you hope to get to the other team’s bullpen in a game like this,” said Drury head coach Scott Nasby as the Prairie Stars used five different pitchers in the game. “Our guys did a great job at the plate and we won because we got pitch-counts high in at-bats early on and then Austin Simms was lights-out for us on the mound.”
Austin Simms (7-4) got the win going 6.1 innings allowing four hits and two runs with five walks and four strikeouts.
The Panthers had 13 hits in the game and have had 38 hits in their three games so far in the tournament.
