Eastern Illinois took the lead over Butler with a four-run second inning, paving the way for its 14-8 win on Tuesday at Coaches Stadium. 

After the second, they added three insurance runs two innings later, going up 9-2. 

However, the Bulldogs (10-18) wanted a turn too. 

After holding the Panthers (12-14, 4-2) to a scoreless bottom of the sixth after picking up two outs early with Butler senior infielder AJ Solomon’s backhanded 4-3 double play, Solomon would go up to bat. 

After he got on via a walk, sophomore outfielder Ryan Drumm got hit by a pitch.

Redshirt junior outfielder Jack Moroknek doubled to bring in Solomon to start a three-run barrage before EIU’s junior right-hander Nate Marshall picked up an out.

To get that first out, Marshall blew a high and tight ball past junior infielder Danny Barbero to strike him out. 

The bleeding stopped, and Marshall got the next two outs within the next three batters and only allowed one more run. 

 Marshall said to ensure it doesn’t get worse, you must not dwell on the failures. 

 “If you dwell on it, it’s going to get worse,” Marshall said. “So just keep living in the zone and eventually it’s going to work itself out.” 

 Plus, the Panthers wouldn’t let that comeback attempt slide. 

 Senior outfielder Quade Peters joined the game and got a free pass to first base from junior right-hander Gabe Pancratz. 

 Senior infielder Jake Ferguson drive Peters in on a ball hit just out of reach of diving junior centerfielder Will Burgess. 

 “Coach [Jason] Anderson was just telling us we just needed one more run every inning,” Jake Ferguson said. “So, our goal every inning is to score a run, and just every run is important on a Tuesday game because you never know how many runs can be scored.” 

 Pancratz wouldn’t finish the inning, after throwing a wild pitch allowing Ferguson to advance and walking freshman infielder James Love, he was pulled for junior right-hander Alex Kanipe. 

 Kanipe got the first batter he faced, senior infielder Brett Stanley, out, but not without allowing Ferguson to score. 

 No more damage was done on the side with Kanipe getting redshirt sophomore catcher Luke Melton to ground out. 

 Marshall went back out there with a four-run inning looming over his head. Solomon would line a 3-2 pitch out into the right-center field gap. 

 Although Marshall didn’t get rattled and made the next batter he saw fly out. 

 However, redshirt junior left-hander Kole Bradley still went in to finish off the inning. The next two batters he faced got out. 

 “That was not the plan [to have Marshall go that long],” head coach Jason Anderson said. “Nate [Marshall] is a strike thrower, and we’ve lost some games on walks and so he just got to the point where he threw so many pitches it was like he’ll just keep going out there and we’ll have to figure the weekend out without him.”

Eastern opted for a bullpen game and used five pitchers with none exceeding more than two innings except for Marshall, who went 3.1. Butler used a similar approach and sent out eight pitchers on the bump. 

The Bulldogs stuck with Kanipe for the bottom of the eighth, and the Panthers tacked on three more runs.  

 To start the ninth, Bradley struck out sophomore outfielder/first baseman Tommy Townsend. 

 Butler wasn’t done yet though. 

 Barbero singled and freshman infielder Harry Carr drew a walk, leading to Bradley getting replaced by junior left-hander Jack Potteiger. 

 The first batter he saw, junior catcher Connor Sackett, singled through the right side of the infield, making the bases loaded. 

 The Bulldogs would score two runs off of this, one off a fielder’s choice and one off a walk. 

 Nonetheless, Potteiger would put an end to the last hope comeback and cause Drumm to pop up and Moroknek to ground out to Ferguson at shortstop. 

 That final run of the game was an unearned run, which was a common trend throughout the game. 

 Despite it being a high-scoring affair, half of Eastern’s runs were unearned (7) and almost half of Butler’s runs were unearned (5). 

 “They’re still not playing great,” Anderson said. “I mean, the runs that we gave up were on errors, walking the first two guys in an inning. One inning we walked bases loaded when we were up by four, five, six, something like that. So we didn’t play great, we just happened to play a little bit better than they did.” 

 The Panthers head into their OVC weekend series against UT Martin with uncertainty due to weather. Anderson said that right now they’re trying to play Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which is one day ahead of the originally scheduled time. 

 “We’re going to try to play Thursday morning and Friday morning, and then if we can get a third game in there, then we will,” Anderson said.