After dropping two conference series this season, the Salukis had a midweek matchup against a non-conference foe.

SIU (17-15, 2-4) challenged Southeast Missouri State University (21-10, 13-2) Tuesday night, but the Salukis’ struggles carried over from Sunday and led to a 5-4 loss.

Senior shortstop Jake Welch was the only left-handed hitter in the starting lineup for the Salukis. Welch has started 30 games this season, which is tied for the team lead with senior designated hitter Cody Daily.

Coach Ken Henderson said he wanted to get senior outfielder Donny Duschinsky and freshman outfielder J.C. DeMuri more at-bats because the team is facing another left-handed pitcher Friday night, and freshman center fielder Dyllin Mucha will not be at Friday’s game because of a death in the family.

Freshman right-handed pitcher Austin McPheron (1-1) had his second start of the season, and showed he was nervous early in the game. Freshman right-handed pitcher Connor McFadden (1-1) was the fourth starter for the majority of the season, but has the highest ERA of the team, which allowed McPheron to earn more playing.

“I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves,” Henderson said. “He’s shown enough in two starts to earn additional starts.”

The Redhawks took a 3-0 lead in the first inning off of four hits. They extended their lead to 4-0 in the fifth, which made Henderson choose to bring in senior right-handed pitcher Matt Murphy.

SIU scored its first run in the sixth inning. Freshman third baseman Will Farmer started the inning with a single and reached third on a throwing error by the Redhawks shortstop. Senior second baseman Ryan Rosthenhausler hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score Farmer and cut the SEMO lead to 4-1.

DeMuri made his 12th start of the season in right field, and had his first hit since March 23. He advanced to second on a wild pitch, and to third on a single from Welch. DeMuri scored on a balk to cut the Redhawk lead to 4-2.

SEMO answered by scoring another run on two hits in the bottom of the eighth off senior left-handed pitcher Derek Fogel to give them a 5-2 lead.

Senior first baseman Ryan Casillas won the Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Week last week, and collected three hits Tuesday. Daily drove Casillas in with a two-run home run in the ninth, but the Salukis were not able to pull off the comeback.

“Being down by one run, we just need to be more consistent,” Daily said. “We’re not quite there yet, we’re battling in really close games and losing a lot of one-run games this year.”

Five of the Salukis’ nine hits came from Casillas and Daily.

The only left-handed hitter to bat for SIU, other than Welch, was Mucha. He came in for Duschinsky in the sixth inning. Mucha had a seven-game hitting streak, but failed to get a hit in two at-bats Tuesday to end his streak.

“It was a great strategy by coach Henderson,” Casillas said. “This game’s definitely about matchups, righty-lefty and lefty-righty, obviously we didn’t get it done today but we did what we could do.”

Junior outfielder Parker Osborne had the longest hitting streak on the team at 10 games, but Osborne went 0 for 4 to end his streak as well.

The Salukis play Indiana State University (21-7, 5-4) at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Itchy Jones Stadium.

Aaron Graff can be contacted at [email protected], @Aarongraff_DE or 536-3311 ext. 269