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EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The University of Evansville baseball team fell to its cross-town rival Southern Indiana, 9-4, Tuesday night in the "Battle at The Braun" at Braun Stadium.  The win marked the first for the Screaming Eagles in the history of the series, as the Purple Aces had won the previous eight meetings.
 
Evansville (28-15) managed just six hits against four Southern Indiana (36-8) pitchers with sophomore Shain Showers leading the way by going 2-for-4 with a pair of doubles and two RBI.  Junior Jarod Perry tallied the only other two RBI for UE, going 1-for-2 with a walk.
 
Evansville took a 2-0 lead in the bottom second, when Showers doubled home junior Boomer Synek and Perry followed with an RBI single through the left side of the infield.
 
The lead was short lived, as the Eagles exploded for five runs in the top of the fourth, putting nine of their first 10 base runners in the inning on the base paths.  Brent Weinzapfel drove in USI's first run with a hard hit ball back up the middle, two batters later, Harrison Carr tied the game with a double down the line in left, before Trent Gunn gave Southern Indiana a 3-2 lead with an RBI single.  The Eagles' final two runs of the frame came when Evansville reliever Tyler Miller hit both Caleb Eickhoff and Kyle Kempf on back-to-back pitches with the bases loaded.
 
The Aces trimmed USI's lead to 5-4 in the bottom of the fifth, when Showers and Perry once again came through with RBI hits to score both Eric McKibban and Jonathan Ramon, but Southern Indiana would respond with a run in its half of the sixth to extend the margin to 6-4.
 
The Eagles put the game away with a trio of insurance runs in the top of the ninth, with all three coming with two outs.  Ryan Bertram plated Andrew Cope with an RBI single, before Gunn capped the inning with a two-run double down the line in left.
 
Freshman Jimmy Ward (0-4) suffered the loss on the mound for the Aces, as he gave up four runs on five hits in just 1.1 innings of work.
 
UE will look to rebound this weekend, when it travels to Southern Illinois for a three-game Missouri Valley Conference series beginning Friday, May 2, at 6:30 p.m. in Carbondale, Ill.