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

[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.

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]