SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The University of Illinois Springfield baseball team fell to Southern Indiana on Saturday, 1-7 and 1-4, at the UIS Baseball Field.

The Prairie Stars struggled to get the offense going in the doubleheader, collecting 12 hits on the day. UIS is now 16-19 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference with just one game left in the regular season. Coming into the weekend, the Prairie Stars were tied with Bellarmine. The Knights began a four-game series today with McKendree.

Junior Jose Marin (Maturin, Venezuela) made his sixth start of the season and ran into trouble in the top of the first. After a strikeout to start the game, Southern Indy hit back-to-back home runs to make the score 2-0. The visiting Screaming Eagles went to the long ball again in the third when third baseman Trent Gunn hit a two-run shot to center field.

After Southern Indy tacked on two more runs in the fourth, the Prairie Stars went to work in the bottom half. With one out, junior Gabriel Acevedo (Portage, Ind.) connected on his fifth home run of the season to get UIS on the board.

Junior Gavin Collins (Camp Verde, Ariz.) and freshman Jon Laird (Amherst, Ohio) combined to throw 3.1 scoreless innings in relief. The Prairie Stars threatened to score again in the bottom of the sixth stranded a runner at third to keep the score 7-1 in favor of the visitors.

USI's Alex Holder pitched a complete game for the win.

In the second game of the day, the Screaming Eagles jumped out to an early again, taking advantage of two UIS errors to push across a pair of runs.

The Prairie Stars responded in the bottom of the third to make the score 2-1. A pair of singles and a walk loaded the bases for the hosts with nobody out. Junior Adam Warda (Skokie, Ill.) hit into a 4-6-3 double play, but a run scored to cut the deficit in half.

UIS threatened again in the sixth inning with two on and just one out, but another double play killed the rally and kept the score 2-1. Southern Indy added a couple of insurance runs in the ninth inning and eventually won, 4-1.

Junior Matt Farrinton (Orland Park, Ill.) picked up the tough-luck loss, going 6.1 innings and allowing zero earned runs while striking out six.

The series and regular-season finale is tomorrow at 12 p.m. It's also senior day as UIS will recognize Alex Bradley (Peoria, Ill.), Kyle Schildroth (Aviston, Ill.) and Robert Spath (Petersburg, Ill.) in a pregame ceremony.