THE LEAD
The DBU Patriots moved to the championship game of their side of the bracket in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament with a 6-2 win over Indiana State on Thursday afternoon at Hammons Field in Springfield, Missouri. Jordan Martinson picked up with the win with six-plus innings of work while allowing only two runs, while Seth Elledge became the all-time Division I saves leader at DBU by earning his 26th career save as he came on in the seventh inning with two aboard and closed out the Patriot victory while striking out four. The DBU (38-19) offense picked up ten hits in the game with four different players recording multi-hit games. Tim Millard launched his second home run of the tournament and drove in a pair of runs.
 
The Patriots opened the scoring in the second inning when Camden Duzenack reached with two outs after an extended at-bat that ended in a walk. With the Patriot shortstop aboard, Garrett Wolforth lined a double past the Indiana State (28-25) first baseman and down the rightfield line to score Duzenack from first and give DBU an early one-run advantage.
 
The Sycamores took the lead the next half inning on a solo homerun from Dane Giesler and then a two out single from Jeff Zahn that scored a run from second base.
 
DBU regained the lead in the fourth inning on Millard's 11th home run of the season with Matt Duce aboard before trading scoring opportunities with the Sycamores where both teams came up empty. Evan Sandmann followed Millard's homerun with a double and Duzenack had another extended at-bat walk, but two strikeouts and a groundball ended the DBU threat with no further damage.
 
In the top of the fifth inning, the Sycamores also saw runners on first and second base with nobody out, but Martinson retained the lead for the Patriots by easily fielding a sacrifice bunt and then striking out Tony Rosseli and Giesler to end the inning.
 
The Patriots added two more runs in the fifth inning when Sandmann sent a bounding ball up the middle with two strikes and two outs to score Granberg and Millard and increase the lead to four. That lead became five two batters into the seventh inning as Austin Listi doubled to lead off the frame and Matt Duce followed with a two-strike RBI single through the left side.
 
Martinson had departed in the top of the seventh inning after sandwiching a strikeout between two walks. With two aboard, Elledge came on from the bullpen and struck out the first batter he faced before inducing Giesler to fly out to right to end the threat and keep the three run advantage. The Duce RBI then pushed the lead to four heading to the final two frames.
 
Elledge made quick work of the Sycamores in the final two innings to seal the win and move the Patriots to the 4:00 p.m. game on Friday where they will face the winner of an elimination game between Evansville and Indiana State.
 
THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
- For the third time in their four years in the Missouri Valley Conference, DBU has won the first two games of the tournament and are within one win of advancing to the their third MVC Championship game.
- The Patriots were able to chase Indiana State starter, Tyler Ward, from the game after he threw 105 pitches over 4.1 innings of work.
- Jordan Martinson notched his fourth quality start of the year in which he has worked at least 6.0 innings and allowed three earned runs or less.
 
DBU HEAD COACH ON THE JOB MARTINSON & ELLEDGE DID ON THE MOUND
"We needed Jordan to go out and give us a solid start today and he did just that against a tough lineup.  Then Elledge came out of the pen and I thought beyond having a great fastball, that he really did a great job of pitching.  What they gave us on the mound allowed us to save our pen for tomorrow."
 
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
26 – Seth Elledge becomes the all-time leader in career saves in DBU Baseball's Division I history, surpassing Chris Haney, who held the record since 2011.
9 – Jordan Martinson's ninth win of the season places him in a tie for the fifth most wins in a single-season in DBU's Division I era.
0 – After committing a season-high five errors yesterday, DBU responded by not committing an error today.
 
UP NEXT
The Patriots are scheduled to play Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. game when they will face the winner of the 9:00 a.m. game between Evansville and Indiana State.  A DBU win in that game would send the Patriots to the championship game on Saturday.