The Eastern baseball team won one game out of its three games against Belmont over the weekend. Eastern won the last game of the series 7-3

The Panthers (8-27, 4-11) came out of the gates hot with junior Joe Duncan hitting his sixth home run on the season. Belmont tied it in the bottom of the first with Rafael Bournigal scoring on a sacrifice from Matt Cogen.

In the top of the second, Duncan added another run, driving in redshirt sophomore Josh Turnock who walked earlier in the inning.

In the third, Turnock led off the inning with a solo homerun to put the lead at 3-1.

The Bruins came back to tie in the bottom of the fourth. The bases were loaded and Drake Byrd singled in one run. Ben Kocher got on base with a fielder’s choice which scored Cogen.

In the top of the fifth, junior Logan Beaman started the rally with a walk. Beaman advanced to third on two wild pitches. Beaman scored on a pinch-hit sacrifice fly from junior Hunter Beetley. Redshirt junior Frankie Perrone drove in junior Matt Albert on a ground rule double to make the Panther lead 5-3.

The Panthers’ bats continued later in the game to put up two more runs. Duncan scored on a sophomore Jimmy Govern groundout and Albert hit a home run, his 12th on the season.

Senior Michael McCormick earned his first win on the season. McCormick went five scoreless innings and only gave up five hits.

In game two of the series, the Panthers lost 8-3.

The Bruins took a quick 2-0 through three innings on an RBI single from Conger and Cogen. The Panthers answered right back with a home run by junior Dougie Parks. But in the bottom of the fourth, Belmont opened up the flood gates and poured on three runs extending the lead to 5-1.

In the top of the seventh, Turnock singled and scored on a Perrone double. Perrone scored on a Beetley double to close the gap 5-3.

Belmont added another run in the bottom half of the inning on a couple of throwing errors. The Bruins added two more runs in the eighth.

Redshirt senior Brendon Allen received his sixth loss on the season. He went 3.1 innings giving up five runs on nine hits.

The Panthers’ next game is against a non-conference team of Butler on Tuesday in Indianapolis at 3 p.m.

Tyler McCluskey can be reached at 581-2812 or at trmccluskey@eiu.edu