Eastern red-shirt junior outfielder Demetre Taylor and junior pitcher Jake Johnasmeier were nominated for Ohio Valley Conference weekly awards for their performances this past weekend at Jacksonville State

Taylor was nominated for OVC Player of the Week after he went 8-for-16 at the plate. He drove in five runs and leads the team with a .313 batting average. He also ranks 18^th nationally in triples per game.

Senior infielder Dane Sauer said it is big for their team that Taylor is starting to produce offensively.

“He’s huge,” he said. “Everybody feeds off him, which is good when he is hot. Hopefully we can continue the trend and keep him going.”

Eastern coach Jimmy Schmitz added that it is good to see Taylor get comfortable.

“It will mean a lot to our offense if he and Brant Valach get it going,” he said. “They both are improving each week and will explode soon.”

Johansmeier, on the other hand, was nominated for OVC Pitcher of the Week after allowing just three runs, two were earned, over seven innings in the series finale at Jacksonville State.

Johansmeier is 0-2 on the season in seven appearances thus far this season. He has pitched 24 innings, allowed 32 hits and 18 earned runs. He has struck out 17 batters.

Eastern lost its junior shortstop, Mitch Gasbarro, against the Memphis Tigers two weeks ago after he was attempted to bunt and was hit on the wrist and fractured it.

He will be out 4-to-6 weeks according to coach Jimmy Schmitz. Sauer said with Gasbarro being out, that is a big loss to their team.

“He was just starting to get hot,” Sauer said. “Us other guys have to step up. Cale has been playing pretty well too, so that’s good.”

At the time of his injury, Gasbarro was hitting .205 with three RBI. He had an .304 on-base percentage.

Beaty, Evans win OVC Player of the Week

Belmont senior infielder Matt Beaty and Southeast Missouri outfielder Clayton Evans shared OVC Player of the Week for this week.

Beaty hit .467 with four runs scored, two home runs and nine runs batted in and a stolen base. He had a .867 slugging percentage and a .566 on-base percentage in four Belmont victories last week. He was 3-for-4 in the series opener with Morehead State.

In game two of that series, he drove in five runs batted in by hitting two home runs in a 10-3 victory. He finished off the week with a pair of RBI singles as Belmont won, 5-4, to complete the sweet of Morehead State.

Beaty currently ranks third in the OVC with a .415 batting average.

Evans hit .500 last week and scored seven runs. He had two home runs, seven RBI and a .938 slugging percentage. He had a .579 on-base percentage as Southeast Missouri went 4-1 last week, including a non-conference win at Arkansas and then a sweep of OVC rival Tennessee-Martin.

Evans homered in the 12-11 SEMO win at Arkansas Wednesday.

In the first game of the UT-Martin series, Evans was 2-for-3 with a grand slam and five RBI. Evans currently has an 11-game hitting streak.

Belmont senior pitcher Dan Ludwin won OVC Pitcher of the week after pitching a 3-hit shutout in the 9-0 victory over Morehead State Friday. He allowed a single in the fourth inning and a pair of singles in the sixth inning and then retired the final 10 batters he faced.

He struck out four Eagles batters and did not walk won. He improved his record to 2-1 this season with a 2.35 earned run average.

Eastern will be back in action at 3 p.m. at Coaches Stadium against Murray State.

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