Box Score CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo.- The Belmont University baseball team (29-25, 15-13 OVC) saw its offense stymied by the strong pitching of the SEMO Redhawks (35-16, 22-6 OVC), falling 9-2 Thursday evening at Capaha Field.
Belmont was outhit 9-6 in the contest as Clay Payne (Powell, Tenn.) led the Bruins with a pair of knocks and a run scored. Payne picked up his team-high 21st double of the year in the matchup while Brennan Washington (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) opened the scoring with his 15th homer of the season in the second inning.
After Washington's solo blast, the Bruins have now tied the single-season program record of 70 homeruns set last season.
As each squad sent its ace to the mound, it was SEMO's Joey Lucchesi outdueling Belmont's Aaron Quillen (Kingsport, Tenn.) as the reigning OVC Pitcher of the Year struck out 13 Bruins in his six innings of work. After Quillen set the Belmont single-season record for strikeouts last weekend it was Lucchesi who did the same on Thursday night for the Redhawks as the lefty broke the previous record of 130 strikeouts. By the end of his outing, Lucchesi had broken the OVC all-time record for strikeouts (134) in a regular season.
The Bruins struck out 20 times in the setback and fall to 1-5 in their last six games.
Quillen suffered his fourth loss of the season, as he battled through a season-low four innings of duty. The senior was tagged for eight runs and eight hits in his four frames.
Kyle Klotz (Fairview, Tenn.) and Zach Hodgkiss (Eads, Tenn.) combined to hurl four innings of one run ball for the Bruins. Hodgkiss added two innings of scoreless work and continues to provide effective relief as of late.
Belmont struck first with a two-run top of the second, only to see the Redhawks strike back quickly to even the score with a two-run inning of their own in the home half. SEMO scored seven-straight runs from this point forward, scoring nine unanswered after it was all said and done. After two hits in the second inning, the Bruins picked up just four more over their final seven turns at bat.
SEMO, the league's leading team, had five two-out RBIs in the series lidlifter.
Desi Ammons (Hohenwald, Tenn.) added a run driven in on a sacrifice fly for Belmont.
With just one win in the series, the Bruins can lock up a spot in the OVC Tournament, but that opportunity will have to wait until tomorrow.
The Bruins and Redhawks meet for game two of the set tomorrow at 6 p.m. CT.
