BOX SCORE

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Senior pitcher Kyle Lloyd exited with the lead after tossing five shutout innings, but the University of Evansville baseball team could not hold on, as Arkansas-Little Rock scored six unanswered runs to claim the series with a 6-5 win Sunday afternoon at Gary Hogan Field in Little Rock, Ark.
 
Evansville (1-2) led 5-0 after five innings, as Lloyd allowed just three hits and recorded 10 strikeouts in his 5.0 innings on the mound, but the Trojans (2-1) plated four runs in their half of the fifth and tacked on two more in the eighth to complete the comeback.
 
“Kyle Lloyd gave us a great chance to win today by providing us with a great start, but we squandered it away, giving up another big inning in this series,” head coach Wes Carroll said.  “Offensively, we had a chance to put the game away in the final three innings, we just weren’t able to capitalize on the opportunities.”
 
The Purple Aces got five RBI from five different players with junior Jake Mahon leading UE offensively with a pair of hits, including a solo home run, and two runs scored.  Redshirt sophomore Kevin Kaczmarski, freshman Jonathan Ramon, redshirt junior Johnny Day and redshirt sophomore Michael Eckstein combined to drive in Evansville’s other four runs.
 
Evansville took a 1-0 lead on Mahon’s homer in the top of the first and doubled its lead in its half of the second, when Eckstein drove a single through the right side of the infield that allowed Day, who led off the inning with a walk, to score from second.
 
The Aces extended their lead to 3-0 in the top of the fourth on an RBI fly out by Kaczmarski that allowed senior Chris Pearson to tag and score from third.  Pearson led off the frame with a single and advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Eckstein, before Kaczmarski’s fly ball to right.
 
UE pushed across two more runs in the top of the fifth on RBI singles by Ramon and Day and led 5-0 after five full innings.  Mahon started the inning with a double to right and scored on Ramon’s one-out single.  Later in the stanza, Day delivered a two-out single that allowed Ramon to score from second.
 
UALR got it offense going in the bottom of the sixth, when junior Ryan Billo came on in relief of Lloyd.  Arkansas-Little Rock immediately jumped on Billo, scoring its first run of the contest after Ben Crumpton doubled to left and scored on a single by Myles Parma.  Bryson Thionnet brought the Trojans within one run of Evansville by belting a two-out, three-run blast over the wall in left to make the score 5-4.
 
After a scoreless seventh in which each team stranded a runner in scoring position, the Trojasn were able to take the lead by pushing across two runs in their half of the eighth.  After Aces’ reliever Tyler Miller allowed a one-out single, senior Jake Naumann was called out of the bullpen to try and close the game for UE.  Naumann was able to get John Clark to line out to second for the second out of the inning, but Thionnet once again came through for UALR, tying the game at 5-5 with a triple to right.  Thionnet scored the eventual game-winning run one batter later, crossing the plate on a dropped third strike that would have ended the inning.
 
In the top of the ninth, UE put the tying run in scoring position, when senior Jason Hockemeyer singled to short and Day reached on an error, but Hockeyer would be stranded at second after Pearson grounded out to end the game.
 
“All-in-all, I learned a lot about out club during this season-opening series,” Carroll said. “All three games were hard fought and could have gone either way.”
 
Naumann (0-1) was saddled with the loss, allowing an unearned run in his 0.2 innings of relief, while Dillon Moritz (1-0) earned the win for Arkansas-Little Rock by tossing two scoreless innings of relief and allowing just two hits.
 
The Aces will return to the state of Arkansas next weekend, when they travel to Fayetteville for a three-game series with No. 1 Arkansas beginning Friday, Feb. 22. The Razorbacks took two of three games from Western Illinois in their season-opening series and will host New Orleans for a pair of games, before welcoming Evansville to Baum Stadium.