The Saluki baseball team has lost all of its six conference series this season, and has eight one-run losses.

The Salukis (22-26, 4-14) hosted the Missouri Valley Conference-leading University of Evansville (30-16, 11-4) for their final home conference series of the season. The Purple Aces won the series two games to one.

On Friday, junior pitcher Sam Coonrod made his 12th start, and had his toughest matchup of the season.

Evansville’s junior pitcher Kyle Freeland leads the MVC in wins, strikeouts and has the third-best ERA. He is projected to be a first-round draft pick this year and SIU head coach Ken Henderson said he is one of the best pitchers in the nation.

“He’s a very good pitcher,” Coonrod said after Friday’s game. “I was going to have to be good. To give us a chance to win, I was either going to have to allow no or one runs.”

Coonrod recorded five strikeouts in 6.1 innings and departed with a 1-0 lead and two runners left on base. Freshman pitcher Kyle Pauly came in and allowed the Purple Aces to tie the game 1-1, which gave Coonrod his sixth no-decision of the year.

“I never want to come out, ever,” Coonrod said. “I think it was the right move, but I never want to come out.”

Evansville took a 2-1 lead in the eighth. SIU was down to its last out in the ninth, but senior Jake Welch hit an RBI single to send the game to extra innings.

The Salukis played in their 12^th extra-inning game this season, which leads the nation.

Lee Weld came in to pitch for the Salukis and gave up two runs in the 11^th to give Evansville a 4-2 victory.

“I’m not frustrated,” Henderson said. “It was a great college baseball game and I thought we played well.”

Freshman second baseman Connor Kopach led the team in hitting going 4 for 6 with one RBI and one run scored.

“It gives me a lot of confidence going in to the next couple of weeks,” Kopach said. “(Freeland’s) a first rounder and it feels good to get some hits off him.”

Senior pitcher Todd Eaton was the MVC Pitcher of the Week last week, and was Saturday’s starter. Eaton threw seven innings and only gave up one earned run, which set up an 8-2 victory.

“(Eaton) did a great job of what we call ‘minimizing it’ by not letting them have a big inning,” Henderson said. “He really never let them back into the ball game.”

Eaton said it was nice beating the first-place team in the conference, but it felt the same as any win.

“We just need to beat anybody in conference right now,” he said. “We need to get wins under our belt.”

Eaton has the highest-run support of any Saluki starting pitcher.

“I think the hitters like me better,” he said. “I don’t know why.”

Senior catcher Matt Jones went 2 for 4 with two doubles and three RBIs.

“This is the time to start clicking and to start rolling as a team,” Jones said. “If we can get offense and defense to start going at the same time, we’ve been in every game, so I think we could make a run in the conference tournament.”

Jones has hits in nine of the last ten games.

SIU lost Sunday 8-4 to drop the series. Junior pitcher Aaron Hauge started for the Salukis and recorded five strikeouts in the first four innings. He did not give up a run until Evansville’s five-run fifth inning.

“We don’t talk about where we’re at in the league,” Henderson said. “We don’t talk about the frustrating losses; we don’t talk about anything in the past.”

Senior shortstop Jake Welch went 1 for 5, but had his 250^th career hit, which is 10^th most in Saluki history. He said a few of his teammates congratulated him when he came back to the dugout.

“Not many guys were paying attention,” Welch said. “They were paying attention more so to the game, but some guys were happy for me.”

The Salukis host Mississippi Valley State University (3-34, 3-16) Friday through Sunday for their last home series of the season.

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