The Eastern bats came alive and so did the team’s chances of competing in the Ohio Valley Conference after a double header sweep of Murray State last Saturday in Kentucky.

The Panthers scored 28 runs in the two games, including 17 in game two to sweep the twinbill.

Eastern broke open game one with nine runs in the middle four innings to turn a 2-2 tie into an 11-2 lead. The big blows came in the seventh when seniors Chris Uhle and Kyle Haines combined for five of the six runs scored. Uhle singled to right center to score two and then his double play partner, Haines, connected on a three run gain to give Eastern a nine run lead.

The hit by Haines extended his hitting streak to 12 games and the shortstop currently sits fourth on the team with a .286 batting average.

“The thing Kyle realized during the streak is that he was trying to do too much at the plate earlier in the year,” Panthers head coach Jimmy Schmitz said. “Now he just does what it takes to get a base hit and try to keep an inning going. He’s doing what he can and has become a very consistent hitter.”

Eastern picked up the victory after starter Kirk Miller went seven solid innings scattering nine and giving up five runs. The sophomore struggled with control (eight walks) but refused to let the Racers back into the game after Eastern broke open the game.

“We switched Kirk to leadoff the series and he did a nice job,” Schmitz said. “We gave him a lot of run support and he held the lead.”

With the win, Miller improved to 2-3 on the season. Murray State starter Jesse Rhoads took the loss as he allowed four runs in four innings and fell to 0-1 on the season.

In the game two, Eastern scored three in third and four more in the next frame to take an 8-3 in the middle of the fourth inning. In the third, Ryan Campbell delivered a RBI double and first baseman Kevin Carkeek chimed in with a two-run single. Uhle drove in two in the fourth with a ground-rule double to right and Haines and Campbell kept the runs coming with RBI singles.

The Racers came back with single tallies in the fourth and fifth to cut the lead to three, but the Eastern bats came alive again in the sixth and seventh, with nine total runs to cruise to a 17-6 victory.

Eastern starter Kyle Widegren pitched all seven innings to improve to 2-4 on the year. Murray State’s Billy Fares (2-3) took the loss as he was hit hard to the tune of 11 runs in five innings.

Eastern moved into a tie for third place in the OVC with the sweep.