The Panthers baseball team fell in an early week game against Saint Louis Tuesday night 12-1.

The Billikens (18-8) started out with an early lead in the first but the flood gates opened in the third and fourth innings for Saint Louis. Alex King had a lead-off triple and scored on an RBI sacrifice from Nick Reeser.

In the third, Parker Sniatynski reached on a fielder’s choice, the the Billikens showed their power in their bats with back-to-back homeruns from James Morisano and Devin Mahoney, taking the 4-0 lead.

But the Billikens were not done. Saint Louis would get two more hits and Dubet would double in one more run to advance the lead 5-0. The Panthers would make a pitching change for senior Chase Thurston who went 2 2/3 innings and giving up five runs off of nine hits, earning his first loss on the season, moving his ERA up to 8.50. Junior Devin Rose came in and closed out the third.

The fourth inning saw much of the same offense from the Billikens bats, scoring six runs on six hits to put the lead up to 11-0. Rose would only go 2/3 of an inning giving up all six of those runs in the fourth along with two walks bringing his ERA to 31.26 on the year. Saint Louis would add another run in the sixth.

The Panther bats started coming around in the top of the seventh inning when sophomore Jimmy Govern would single to left with runners on the corners, scoring freshman Alex Stevenson. That is all that the Panthers could muster up.

Govern ended up going 3-4 with two singles and a double and the lone RBI putting batting average up to .371 on the year. Junior Hunter Beetley went 2-3 adding to the Panthers eight hits.

The Panthers gave up 18 hits. Alex King went 3-5 on the day with an RBI.

Trent Leimkuehler also went 3-5 with two doubles and an RBI with three runs bring his average to .361.

Saint Louis’ Garret Acton earned his first win of the season. Acton went four innings and had six strikeouts giving up only four hits.

The loss brings Eastern’s record to 5-23 on the year.

The Panthers next game will be against Illinois College Wednesday at 3 p.m.

Tyler McCluskey can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected]