Chance Resetich’s walk-off in 14th secures series sweep for SEMO

Southeast Missouri State third baseman Chance Resetich hits a double against Western Illinois on Sunday at Capaha Field.

Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

Southeast Missouri State third baseman Chance Resetich has as many hits as games started (19) this season.

On a long Sunday afternoon, he made his 19th hit count by driving in the winning run to complete the series sweep against Western Illinois at Capaha Field.

“I’ve been in the spot before,” Resetich said. Just get a good pitch to hit and don’t miss it, that was pretty much it.”

The Redhawks entered the bottom of the 14th inning down 7-6 to the Leathernecks, who broke the six-inning stalemate with an RBI single by shortstop Derek Botaletto in the top half. SEMO started the rally with a Peyton Leeper single to right field. Right fielder Carlos Aranda almost hit a walk-off two-run home run, but the ball bounced off the outfield wall in left-center and he had to settle with tying the game by driving Leeper home, who stole second base during the at-bat.

“Oh my god, after 14 innings, everything feels good,” Aranda said. “If you get a hit or a double, everything feels good. So we just hit like barrel after barrel and then we got the winner and it feels amazing.”

Southeast Missouri State outfielder Carlos Aranda bats against Western Illinois on Sunday at Capaha Field. (Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com)

With Aranda at second base, it was Resetich’s turn to play the hero.

“I was like Carlos better hurry his ass,” said Resetich, to which Aranda replied, “I’m fast enough” within seconds. “That’s what I was thinking. He’s speedy, so he scored and that was awesome.”

The Redhawks found themselves down 6-3 entering the bottom of the fifth inning. The offense scored a run in five straight innings to eventually tie the game 6-6 with an RBI by Ben Palmer.

Kyle Miller came out of the bullpen in the eighth inning and went 5.2 innings with three strikeouts, no runs, and four hits.

The Redhawks started the season 2-8, but have since gone 8-4 to finish the weekend at 10-12. While the Redhawks have not yet won a game in the middle of the week, SEMO has won the last three weekend series, including sweeping the previous two. The Redhawks travel to play Arkansas on Tuesday before entering conference play.

“We haven’t started off that great yet,” Leeper said.“There are still a lot of things that we can improve on, and going into conference play with a sweep is definitely an ideal situation. I’m just thankful that it happened the way it did.”