CHICAGO, Ill. - The Milwaukee baseball team led early and battled back from a deficit to tie the game in the sixth inning, only to see Northern Kentucky score the final six runs of the day in an 11-5 loss Wednesday in the first round of the Horizon League Tournament.
 
The Panthers (22-32) overcame a 5-3 hole and tied up the Norse (25-31) in the sixth inning, but could not keep momentum on their side. NKU retook the lead the very next half-inning and never looked back, eliminating Milwaukee from the postseason tournament.
 
"That was the way things were going," Milwaukee head coach Scott Doffek said. "If we'd score, we would give it right back. We had an opportunity to grab that momentum and to give up those runs … that was tough."
 
The Panthers manufactured three runs in the top of the second to mark the first scoring of the contest. A suicide squeeze by Ian Ross plated the first run and Cole Heili came through with a big two-out hit to make it 2-0. With Heili in motion, Billy Quirke singled up the middle and a third run plated on Chris Kelly's well-placed bunt with two outs.
 
"I felt great about the early lead," Doffek said. "With the wind blowing in the way it was and Jay (Peters) on the mound, that is usually going to be a good combination. It was an extremely tight zone and he wasn't able to get a corner early in the game and they really took advantage of it. You have to give NKU a lot of credit."
 
The Norse looked to have an answer in the last of the second, putting two on with no outs, but Jay Peters got an infield out, strikeout and pop fly to right to immediately end the threat. NKU did eventually get to Peters, striking for five unanswered, tying the game at 3-3 in the third before taking a lead with two more in the bottom of the fifth.
 
"They banged out 17 hits and we didn't," Doffek said. "Like I said, you have to give their offense a lot of credit – they were barreling everything we threw."
 
The Panthers made it a new game themselves, tying it at 5-5 in the top of the sixth without swinging the bat. Five walks in the frame provided all the damage, with bases-loaded RBI's coming from the good eye of both Quirke and Kelly.
 
However, the tides changed just as quick. Four pitches later NKU retook the lead for good, getting a leadoff triple on a 1-1 count and an RBI-single up the middle the very next pitch. A four-run seventh inning sealed it.
 
Kelly finished 2-for-4 with two runs driven in as the only Panther with more than one hit. Daulton Varsho, John Boidanis, Mike Jordahl, Heili and Quirke each finished with one.
 
Peters (8-2) suffered his first loss since March 25, tagged for seven runs on 10 hits in 5.0 innings. TJ Alas paced the Norse with a 4-hit day, scoring three times.
 
The loss concludes the 2017 campaign for the Panthers.