Tuesday, April 01, 2014
Sports News

Savas Goes The Distance As Illinois State Tops Indiana State 5-2

Send a link to a friend  Share

[April 01, 2014]  TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Dan Savas fired his second consecutive complete game to lead Illinois State (16-7, 3-1 Missouri Valley Conference) to a 5-2 victory over Indiana State (16-6, 1-3 Missouri Valley Conference) on Friday night at Bob Warn Field. Savas has now won 17 consecutive decisions and has thrown consecutive Valley complete-game wins.

Savas (7-0) allowed two runs, one earned, on five hits, with six strikeouts and two walks. The victory was the 20th win of his career as a Redbird. David Stagg (4-2) was ticketed with the loss. He allowed two earned runs on five hits over 5.1 innings.

The Sycamores scored first to take a 1-0 lead off Savas in the second inning. Brian Romero drew a one-out walk and scored on an RBI-single from Jeff Zahn. Savas then retired 10 straight Sycamores, a streak that carried into the fifth inning.

Sean Beesley opened the third inning with a single. The Redbird center fielder then stole second base and third base before scoring on an RBI hit from Paul DeJong to tie the game 1-1. Daniel Dwyer drew a one-out walk in the fifth inning and scored on Mike Hollenbeck's double down the left-field line. Hollenbeck finished with two hits and one walk to extend his on-base streak to 23 games.

Beesley drew a bases-loaded walk in the eighth inning, and Dwyer added a sacrifice fly to extend the Illinois State advantage to 4-1. In the ninth inning, Mason Snyder pulled a pinch-hit single into left field to plate Hollenbeck and make it 5-1 Illinois State.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Mike Fitzgerald roped a leadoff single off Savas. Romero then reached on an error by Joe Kelch, putting runners at first and second base with nobody out. With a 0-2 count on Wampler, there was a light malfunction at Bob Warn Field that led to a 10-minute delay. When play resumed, Wampler reached on a fielder's choice; however, Romero was forced out at second base by Savas. Jeff Zahn then lifted a fly ball to center field, but Beesley dropped the ball for an error. Fitzgerald scored to make it 5-2 Illinois State and Wampler advanced to second base. Connor McClain batted next and lifted a blast to right-center field, but Leverett made a diving catch near the warning track for out two and fired to second base to double off Wampler and end the game.

[to top of second column]

In addition to his defensive gem to end the game, Leverett reached base four times and scored one run for Illinois State.

The series resumed Saturday afternoon. (See report.)

___

Box score   (PDF)

Overall statistics   (PDF)

[Text from news release received from Illinois State University]

< Sports index

Back to top