Saturday’s boxscores / Sunday’s boxscore

The Panthers’ rally fell short again.

They were down 2-1 against Samford going into the ninth inning on Sunday at Coaches Stadium.

This was the second time this series that Eastern (17-17, 7-7 Ohio Valley Conference) has been down in the end, but not too far from a comeback.

In game two of the series, the Panthers were down 7-0 going into the bottom of the fifth, but scored two runs in each of the next three innings. Eastern fell short in the nightcap on Saturday, 7-6.

The bases were loaded when freshman first baseman Alex Gee grounded out to third base to end the game.

“We worked really hard to catch back up with them in game two and it is upsetting when it just doesn’t happen in the end,” said senior third baseman Ryan Campbell. “That kind of happened in the last game, too.”

Eastern scored the first run of game three on an RBI single from freshman Richie Derback to bring in sophomore centerfielder Brett Nommensen.

The Panthers held the lead until the sixth inning when Samford scored two runs.

Samford’s third baseman Bill Whitehead homered and the Bulldogs (20-20, 6-9) scored on an RBI single on Samford’s Luke Peavy’s single.

The score remained 2-1, but Derbak allowed one run on a balk and another on a fly ball to centerfield, which made it 4-1.

Gee came in to pinch hit for the Panthers in the bottom of the ninth, but grounded out to the shortstop.

Nommensen, who finished 3-for-3 on Sunday and 8-for-10 in the series, hit a single to left field and was brought in on an RBI double from senior shortstop Adam Varrassi.

Senior Casey Spears was at a full count when he hit a grounder to the shortstop and was thrown out at first to end the game.

“It’s frustrating to think you are coming back and then it not happen,” Varrassi said. “You wish you had done something a few innings earlier.”

Chagnon said being only one or two hits away is frustrating, but he hopes they can work on it and get big hits in the upcoming games.

“It is not promising when you start off that high, you figure that you will be on a roll,” Chagnon said. “But once we changed momentum, we just didn’t come out ready to play the second and third game.”

The Panthers return to action when they play Illinois in a non-conference matchup at 6 p.m. in Champaign.

Assistant coach Sean Lyons waves in sophomore outfielder Brett Nommensen on a Richie Derback single to center during the finale of the three-game set against Samford at Coaches Stadium Sunday afternoon. (John Bailey/The Daily Eastern News)

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