Austin Peay defeated the Eastern baseball team for the third-straight time Monday, 12-3.

The Panthers lost the previous two games by scores of 11-5 and 6-3 Sunday.

Junior Jason Scholl opened the scoring for the Panthers after doubling down the right field line scoring senior’s Dane Sauer and Caleb Howell to give Eastern a 2-1 lead.

Austin Peay answered back in the top of the second after junior Clayton Smithson singled into left field scoring sophomore Garret Copeland and junior Josh Wilson.

Governor sophomore Cayce Bredlau singled to right field scoring junior Caleb Mitchell to give Austin Peay a 4-2 lead.

Austin Peay would tack on four more runs in the next three innings to push the lead to 8-4.

Mitched doubled home two runs in the third inning. Smithson singled home sophomore Adam Robles to tack on another run for the Governors.

Also, Patrick Massoni doubled to left field, scoring Smithson. Massoni went 4-for-2 on the day with two run’s batted it.

Sauer singled home a run in the bottom of the seventh to cut the lead to 8-3. Austin Peay would tack on four more runs to push the lead to which ultimately would be the final score.

With the Panthers ninth straight loss, Sauer said the Panthers haven’t been playing their best baseball as of late.

“It’s tough to do that, especially in conference play,” he said. “These are games we need to win. That was a good team, but by no means we have gotten swept by them.”

Panther freshman Andy Fisher started the game on the mound for the Panthers and lasted 1 1/3 innings allowing three runs, four walks and struck out one batter.

Freshman Ben Hughes came in relief of Fisher and allowed two runs on four hits and walked one.

Governor junior Jared Carkuff got the win for Austin Peay and is now 2-2 on the season. He went six innings, allowed two runs, two walks, three hits and struck out 10.

Sauer said the Austin Peay pitchers weren’t doing anything they haven’t seen before.

“We just didn’t stick to our plan,” he said. “We had like 20 something strikeouts between the two games yesterday, tough to win games when we do that. But also, the time that we do score, it seems like the other team scores the next inning.”

The Panthers have a quick turnaround, when they will face St. Louis University Wednesday in St. Louis, Mo.

“It’s real nice,” Sauer said. “We’d be practicing indoors, but the best practice is a game, so that’s nice.”

The Panthers will play five games before they have their next conference game. Eastern coach Jim Schmitz said the team has to turn it around before they get to their next conference game.

“Tough weekend playing our OVC home games on the road,” he said. “We never got going, which is disappointing, since it’s the beginning of conference play. We now have 11 days and five games to get this figured out.”

Bob Reynolds can be reached at 581-2812 or rjreynolds@eiu.edu.