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Southeast eliminates host Arkansas, setting up program-first final date with K-State
Sunday, June 2, 2024
Southeast's Ben Palmer celebrates while rounding the bases during a Friday, May 17, 2024 game between the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks and the Tennesee-Martin Skyhawks at Capaha Field in Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com
The Southeast Missouri State baseball team went into Baum-Walker Stadium and eliminated the Arkansas Razorbacks, winning 6-3 on Sunday afternoon to keep the Redhawks’ season alive.
As if there was ever a doubt.
Notching perhaps the single-greatest win in program history, holding the No. 5 team in the country to one of its lowest scoring outputs of the season, it’s a monumental win for Andy Sawyers’ Redhawks.
Especially considering just two days ago, those same Razorbacks put up a ridiculous 17 runs on Southeast Missouri in the opening game of the Fayetteville Regional.
All year long, Arkansas has held the reputation of being one of the best teams in the country on the mound, and deservedly so.
But Southeast didn’t care about that, scoring nine runs on Friday and six on Sunday for an average of seven-and-a-half runs a game to push its way to the next big step.
Now moving into the regional final against Kansas State of the Big 12, it marks the first-ever appearance in the regional finals for Southeast baseball.
SEMO grabbed the lead early with a solo homer from Ty Stauss, putting the Redhawks up a run in the first inning before breaking the game wide open in the fourth.
Josh Cameron got a huge single to advance Ben Palmer to score and Stauss around to third, with the Redhawks scoring two more runs soon after to up the lead to four.
Collin Wilma got a huge start for Southeast, pitching the first four innings without allowing a run before surrendering a solo shot in the fifth and getting pulled for Logan Katen.
Katen pitched a brilliant 2.1 innings in relief from the fifth to the seventh, earning the win for his second of the year as he propelled the Redhawks forward defensively to keep the lead intact.
After giving up a solo shot in the top of the fifth, Brooks Kettering, seemingly one of the biggest bright spots of the weekend for SEMO, blasted a solo homer of his own in the bottom of the inning to get that run back.
Kettering finished with two hits for two RBIs, including a later seventh-inning single to bring around the Redhawks’ sixth run of the game.
Cameron and Ian Riley both drew him with two hits each, with both of them driving in a run to keep Southeast’s offense clicking in a highly-effective effort against one of the best-pitching teams in America.
The rest, it seemed, was history.
Despite a two-run homer in the ninth to make it a three-run game, Southeast controlled the game from start to finish as it willed its way into the first regional final in program history.
Setting up a series with Kansas State, with the Redhawks in need of two wins to get into the super regionals, either at Virginia or at Mississippi State.
The Wildcats, 2-0 with wins over Louisiana Tech and Arkansas, present a major challenge, fresh off defeating the Razorbacks 7-6 on Saturday night to punch their ticket to the final still undefeated.
Kansas State needs just one win to get into the super regionals, led by the .332 average of Brady Day and .325 of Kaelen Culpepper right behind him.
Just like Southeast, the Wildcats don’t rely too heavily on either side of the ball to get them where they’re going, with no qualified starter touting an ERA below the 4.00 mark this season.
With just a few hours to prepare for Kansas State, with first pitch set for 6 p.m. in Fayetteville, Arkansas, as SEMO looks to set up a Monday winner-take-all rematch.
Now, winners of back-to-back games with elimination on the line, Southeast has a chance to do something never done before within the program, and the clock is ticking.
