The University of Illinois Springfield baseball team fell in the GLVC Tournament Championship game on Sunday in Ozark, Mo. The Prairie Stars lost to Bellarmine by a 4-3 score.
 
Bellarmine tied the game at three in the fourth inning, and neither team scored for the next three innings. In the bottom of the eighth, the Knights opened up the inning with its first two runners reaching base. A sacrifice bunt moved the go-ahead run to third with one out. A walk loaded the bases, but UIS got a strikeout to get within one out of getting out of the jam. The next batter drew a walk, however, which brought in the winning run.
 
UIS scored two of its runs in the first inning with a two-out rally started by a Chris Monroe single. Joe LaCivita drove him in with a double, and then Chris Mathieu tripled to give the Prairie Stars a 2-0 lead. Bellarmine tied the game in the bottom of the first, but before UIS scored again in the second. That was its final run though as the Knights' pitching kept them off the board for the rest of the game.
 
Monroe finished the game with three of the Prairie Stars' nine hits. Six different pitchers saw action for UIS in the game.
 
UIS falls to 37-15-1 on the season. The Prairie Stars will find out their NCAA Tournament seed later this evening.