MILWAUKEE, Wis. – The Milwaukee baseball pitching staff put together consecutive strong outings to earn a sweep over Illinois State on Saturday. The Panthers won the opener 6-4 and closed with a 2-1 victory in the nightcap.
 
"The strength of our team has been the bullpen," head coach Scott Doffek. "We didn't really do enough to deserve two wins offensively, but we did enough with pitching and defense.  
 
Up 2-1 with bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the ninth of game two, Illinois State's chances to tie or pull ahead looked solid.
 
Nate DeYoung got a shallow flyout to right for out number two and Zach Nogalski put a perfect throw home on the runner trying to tag from third to end the game and give Milwaukee its fifth straight victory.
 
The Panthers (15-15) scored two runs on three hits in the first inning, and it was all pitching and defense from there.
 
Mike Edwards spun a gem, striking out five and allowing just one earned run in five innings to earn the victory.
 
"That was the best Mike has thrown the ball in a month," Doffek said. "He gave up a handful of hits, but they barely left the infield. He made some big pitches when he had to even when there were runners on."
 
Andy Neu then entered in the sixth and retired nine straight including four strikeouts before DeYoung entered in the ninth and escaped with his first save of the year.
 
"I thought Andy for two innings was as good as I've seen him," Doffek commented. "And Nate hasn't done a lot of pitching so to put him in that situation, hats off to him to be relaxed enough to execute."
 
In the opener, MKE and Illinois State (12-21) were locked in a pitchers' duel with Jack Mahoney and Jordan Lussier trading scoreless innings back and forth.
 
The Panthers finally broke through in the fourth as Mitchell Buban and Conner Goodman ripped back-to-back singles to put MKE on top 3-0.
 
Milwaukee took advantage of a Redbirds error in the fourth and added three more runs which turned out to be big as Illinois State finally got to Mahoney in the sixth.
 
The Redbirds rallied for three runs before Matt McCarty entered end escaped the jam. McCarty surrendered a hit as ISU scored one more run, but the redshirt junior got a groundout to end the inning.
 
AJ Blubaugh then entered in the seventh and worked around a double to notch his sixth save of the year.
 
Mahoney earned the victory striking out six in 5.1 innings.
 
Offensively, the Panthers finished with just seven hits on the day but relied on the solid pitching
 
Marcus Cline and Goodman each had a pair of hits for the Panthers.
 
Milwaukee and Illinois State will wrap up the four-game series on Sunday. First pitch is scheduled for 12:00 pm with live coverage available on MKEPanthers.com.