AUBURNDALE, FLA. – Led by the pitching of Matt Graham and the hitting of Tyler Cate, Trey Hubers, Ben Serie and Tyler Blackburn, the University of Sioux Falls Baseball Team (6-5) registered a 6-1 win over Malone (7-6) in nonconference play in the Russmat Central Florida Invitational at the Lake Myrtle Complex on Thursday morning.

Game two of the scheduled doubleheader was halted and will resume on Friday, March 11, at 11:30 pm central standard time. When the game resumes, USF trails Malone, 4-0, with two on and two out in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Graham, a senior from Sioux Falls, S.D., moved to 1-1 on the team by allowing just three hits and one unearned run across 5 2/3 innings with two strikeouts. Alex Krout picked up his third save with 1 1/3 innings of shutdown relief.

The Cougars hitting attack was led by Tyler Cate, who had two hits and a run scored, and pushed his season average to .429. Tyler Blackburn, who is now batting .318, had a pair of hits in four at bats while Ben Serie, who is hitting .333 with 11 RBI, had the game-tying hit in USF's four-run fifth inning. Also in the inning, Hubers had an RBI sacrifice fly and added a triple in the seventh inning to bring home Connor King, who singled with one out.

In the USF's fifth inning, the Cougars rallied with four runs on three hits and one error by Malone to take over the lead in the game. After Cate singled with one out, Noah Christenson walked with the pair executing a double-steal. Then, Grant Lung walked, which was followed by Serie's RBI single to left field. On the play, Cate, Christenson and Lung all scored when the Malone left fielder made an error on fielding the ball. USF added another run on Huber's sacrifice fly which brought home Serie. USF had a run in the sixth inning as Brady Klehr who singled, stole second and later came out on Christenson's RBI sacrfice ground out. With one out in the seventh inning, King singled and came home on the triple by Hubers.

STAT BREAKDOWN – Through 11 games, USF is hitting 325 with 118 hits including 24 extra base hits. USF has a .438 slugging mark and .412 on-base percentage. Noah Christenson (.488), Tyler Case (.429) and Zach Andreasen (.429) are all hitting over .400 with nine total players over .300 (Trey Hubers, .361; Ben Serie, .33; Weston Gerde, .333; Grant Lung. 326; Tyler Blackburn, .318; and Brady Klehr, .310). Trey Hubers had a team-high 13 RBI while Serie has 11 and Christenson, 10. Christenson's .561 slugging mark leads the team as does his .521 OBP. Lung is 8-of-8 in stolen bases as USF is 25-of-27 as a team. On the mound, USF has totaled 74 strikeouts in 80 innings.