Eastern baseball split its weather-affected series against UT Martin, with the Skyhawks winning game one 8-5 and the Panthers winning game two 9-4 in six innings at Coaches Stadium. 

Due to the weather forecast for the week, the games were pushed up to Thursday and Friday with starts set for the morning.  

Initially, a doubleheader was set for Friday, and then it was moved to Thursday. However, after the first game of the series on Thursday, the second game of the doubleheader was pushed to Friday.  

Both team’s head coaches, Eastern’s Jason Anderson and UT Martin’s Ryan Jenkins, met at home plate after the game Thursday and agreed to not play game two until the next day.  

“To play two games at 10 o’clock in the morning is not normal,” Anderson said. “To play on a Thursday is not normal, and to have this type of rain isn’t normal. So, considering everything, it’s just a tough week. Especially guys that are pulling tarps and unknown when they need to be at class, when to be on the baseball field.” 

Anderson said that he and Jenkins wanted to make sure they at least got two games in, which they did. 

In the first game, the Panthers (13-15, 5-3) got out to a 5-0 lead after scoring two runs in the first inning and three in the second. Eastern’s starting pitcher, senior right hander Tyler Conklin, only allowed one runner through those two innings. 

Conklin’s dominance didn’t last though.  

The Skyhawks (12-19, 3-5) chipped away at the lead, scoring one run in innings three and four before tying it with three runs in the fifth.  

After a scoreless sixth, seventh and eighth innings, UT Martin junior infielder Brody Capps hit a three-run home run given up by junior right-handed pitcher Dalton Boruff. 

The Panthers had no answer for this, with UT Martin junior right-handed pitcher Jeb Bartle closing out the game after facing four batters. 

In Friday’s game two, the Skyhawks took the first lead with an unearned run in the first, due to two Panther errors.  

However, Eastern’s offense, which has scored at least seven runs in six of it’s last seven games, scored five runs in the first inning. Three of those runs came from redshirt junior outfielder Joey Hagen’s three-run home run. 

The Panthers’ graduate left-handed pitcher Tyler Kapraun didn’t allow a hit until the third inning, but wouldn’t let that runner score. He went back out for the fourth and went back to not allowing hits, thanks in part to two difficult plays made by senior infielder Chris Worcester at second base.

He made a sliding stop on a ground ball hit to his left and then was able to make a play on a ground ball up the middle in the next at bat, gloving the ball and jump-throwing to first all in one motion to end the inning.

It was Worcester’s second jump-throw to get an out at first base in the series, after he pulled off a similar play in Thursday’s game.

In the fifth inning, the Skyhawks put their first earned run on the board off redshirt sophomore infielder JT Popick’s leadoff home run. UT Martin would tack on another run before Kapraun got out of the inning. 

The Panthers answered back by adding three more insurance runs, making the score going into the sixth 9-5. 

Sophomore right-handed pitcher Anthony Solis, who has made most of his appearences in the starting rotation this season, took the mound in relief for the sixth.  He allowed one run off senior outfielder Arderrius Townsend’s solo home run. 

“They used their game three starter to finish the game yesterday, and so I knew I was going to use Anthony somewhere,” Anderson said. 

The sixth inning turned out to be UT Martin’s only chance to make a comeback, as the game was suspended due to incoming storms after the inning and then later called off. 

“In a game like today, where you don’t know when the rain comes, like don’t be behind,” Anderson said. “You always got to have the lead.” 

Despite the game not going nine innings, the game is official, and counts as a win for the Panthers, since they played six. 

Eastern’s next game is its second matchup against in-state opponent Northern Illinois in Dekalb on Tuesday, with a first pitch scheduled for 2 p.m.