ROMEOVILLE, Ill. – Lewis University's baseball team dropped its home opener to 14th ranked Illinois Springfield 5-3 on Friday afternoon at Brennan Field in Romeoville, Ill. The Flyers fall to 4-5, 2-3 GLVC while the Prairie Stars improve to 8-1, 4-1 GLVC.

"I told the team I thought we lacked energy and urgency at the outset of the game, but I was proud of the poise we showed and the way we fought back," Lewis head baseball coach Tim McDonough said. "Ultimately our defense and base-running let us down which have been fantastic up until today."

Illinois Springfield got on the board first scoring two unearned runs in the third inning on Kal Youngquist's two-run double down the left field line which scored Asher Bradd and Nick Mayerhofer.

The Prairie Stars added another unearned run in the fourth inning as Chris Mathieu scored on a groundout to third.

UIS added another run in the fifth on a sacrifice fly from Austin Alderman which drove in Zion Pettigrew to extend the lead to 4-0.

The Prairie Stars scored an unearned run in the seventh as Alderman scored on a throwing error by Michael O'Brien (Joliet, Ill./Joliet Catholic).

Lewis got on the board in the home half of the seventh on O'Brien three-run opposite field home to right that drove in Max Warren (Yorkville, Ill./Yorkville) and Patrick Keaty (South Elgin, Ill./South Elgin).

The Flyers had the tying runs on base in the ninth and Anthony Cavalieri (Western Springs, Ill./Fenwick) singled to right with one out in the inning, but Julian Everett (Frankfort, Ill/Lincoln Way East) was thrown out at the plate on the play and then Jackson Dvorak (New Lenox, Ill./Providence Catholic) struck out swinging to end the game.

Lewis was outhit in the contest 10-9 and was led offensively by Dalton Crowder (Romeoville, Ill./Plainfield East) with three hits while Cavalieri and Warren added two apiece and O'Brien and Joe Preusser (Orland Park, Ill./Brother Rice) had one each.

"OB's blast was huge as we had nothing going on up to that point and I think that really got us going," McDonough said.

Brad Littleton (Coal City, Ill./) took the loss allowing four runs, one earned, on six hits with three walks and a strikeout in 4.2 innings of work to fall to 1-3 on the year. The Flyer bullpen pitched the final 4.1 innings allowing one unearned run on four hits with four walks and five strikeouts.

"Our bullpen kept us in the game and gave us a chance to claw back in," McDonough said.

Lewis and UIS continues their four-game series with a doubleheader starting at noon at Brennan Field.