Ayers Walk-Off Homer Seals Series Against SEMO for Herd Baseball

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HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – An Owen Ayers walk-off, two-run homer propelled the Marshall University Baseball team (6-9) to a 5-4 victory and a series win on Sunday over the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks (7-10) at Jack Cook Field.

"It was certainly a very exciting finish," Herd baseball head coach Greg Beals after the team took Sunday's contest for the series win. "I thought our pitching did a great job. Carter Lyles gave us a good start and we were able mix-and-match matchups during the middle of the game. For the most part defensively, we played really well. I'm really proud of Owen Ayers. He's a great hitter. He didn't have his best weekend, but all the way until the end he kept competing and got us the big hit when we really needed it."

With two outs and Elijah Vogelsong at first after a leadoff walk, Ayers stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth as Marshall was behind 4-3. The senior catcher trailed in the count 0-2 after a pair of strikes and a foul on the first three pitches. Then the Sarasota, Florida, native sent the 0-2 offering over the right-field fence for the first walk-off blast at Jack Cook Field on his fifth homer of the season.

"It was pretty crazy," Ayers said about his walk-off. "I was praying that would have good energy and good at bats. I never gave up on myself. I was having a tough day. It doesn't matter if it's 0-2 or 2-0, just have a good at bat and a good approach and stick to what you've been doing."

Calin Smith used his first of two doubles in the win to score AJ Havrilla for The Herd's first run of the game and tie the contest 1-1 in the bottom of the second. Havrilla scored again in the bottom of the sixth on a Vogelsong two-out single to tie the game again at 2-2.

Then in the bottom of the seventh MU took its first lead of the game, 3-2, on Caden Kaiser's first long ball of the season that went over the wall in right field with one out.

Griffin Miller picked up his second win of the series recording the final five outs while allowing just one run, unearned, on a hit and a walk.

Today's starter Carter Lyles hurled 4.2 innings allowing two runs on six hits and striking out three.

Reliever Cole Agemy followed with 2.0 scoreless frames of work allowing three hits and issuing no walks.

Kaiser, Smith and Vogelsong all had multi-hit games in the contest with Vogelsong reaching base in all four of his plate appearances as he also drew a pair of walks.

UP NEXT
Marshall prepares for a mid-week contest against in-state rival West Virginia Mountaineers on Tuesday in Charleston at GoMart Ballpark. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m.

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---HerdZone.com---

Ayers Walk-Off Homer Seals Series Against SEMO for Herd Baseball

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Team Stats

Caden Kaiser

Calin Smith

Elijah Vogelsong

Owen Ayers

Players Mentioned

Cole Agemy

Owen Ayers

AJ Havrilla

Caden Kaiser

Carter Lyles

Griffin Miller

Calin Smith

Elijah Vogelsong

Marshall University Athletics