MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee baseball tied a season best with 15 hits on Thursday and plated 11 runs to earn an 11-6 win over Youngstown State to open the Horizon League weekend series.
 
Milwaukee was led by Tyler Bickers with four hits while Justin Hausser connected on three, including his fifth home run of the season. Gabe Roessler, Tate Schmidt, and Q Phillips all had multi-hit games for the Panthers with Schmidt leading the Panthers with three RBIs on the evening.
 
Gavin Theis continued his recent stretch of success as he reached a career-best eight strikeouts for the third time this season. Theis went the first six innings and allowed three runs to earn his seventh victory of the year.
 
"Gavin gave us another veteran-led outing," said head coach Shaun Wegner. "Early in the game he dominated the strike zone and was able to pick up a bunch of strikeouts … overall, today he was in pretty good control."
 
Youngstown State led midway through the fourth by a 2-1 margin before Milwaukee put together a five-spot in the bottom half of the frame. With two down, Phillips collected an RBI double followed by a run-scoring triple off the bat of Cade Palkowski to give Milwaukee the lead.
 
Roessler placed a bunt perfectly down the third base line to score Palkowski before Hausser doubled, and Bickers singled as the Panthers scored five runs in consecutive at bats.
 
"We were able to take advantage of the wind, and we did live on the barrel quite a bit and slug some balls," added Wegner. "This year we've really been able to work the gaps and put some balls over the fence to really do some damage to the other team."
 
Staked to his first lead of the game, Theis surrendered a run in the top of the fifth before Milwaukee answered with a double off the bat of Phillips to chase home Caden Headlee, who had walked to lead off the inning. Milwaukee added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth on a double to right field by Schmidt to give the Panthers a 9-3 advantage.
 
Youngstown scored two in the top of the seventh off Eamonn Mulhern and Riley Peterson and then after a 46-minute rain delay added another in the top of the eighth off Peterson.
 
The home team responded with another two runs in the bottom of the eighth including a leadoff home run by Hausser, and later an RBI ground ball out off the bat of Schmidt.
 
Logan Snow got the final out of the eighth and eventually nailed down his third save of the season with a 1-2-3 ninth inning.
 
Youngstown State had just seven hits on the day, led by Jay Wrona with a pair. Cole Smith drove in three of the five Penguin runs including two on a home run in the seventh. Jacob Gehring was at 96 pitches after five innings and took the loss as he allowed the first seven Milwaukee runs.
 
The two teams will meet again on Friday at Franklin Field with first pitch between the Panthers and Penguins set for 1:00 p.m.