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Peter Tountas may have lost his uniform, but he found his hitting stroke.  The Aces' number nine hitter belted his first two home runs of the season Sunday afternoon to help the University of Evansville defeat Indiana State 6-5.  The victory gave the Aces two wins in the three-game Missouri Valley Conference series against the Sycamores.

Tountas left his white number 4 uniform top at the team hotel in Springfield, Mo. last weekend, so he borrowed the number 18 of injured teammate Ty Legan for this weekend's games.  Tountas went 2-for-2 Sunday and 5-for-6 for the weekend in the new uni, including two solo blasts to right field on Sunday--one in the third inning and one in the seventh.

"The uniform's supposed to be in the mail," said the junior shortstop. "I'll probably go back to my old number when it gets here, although the guys on the team may give me some grief over that.  The main thing is, I'm seeing the ball a lot better.  But I never expected to hit two home runs in a game."

Evansville's biggest inning was the fifth, when the Aces scored three times to go ahead 4-2.  Derek Melton and Nate Smith opened the inning with basehits, and when Jared Baehl laid down a sacrifice bunt to move them up, Indiana State catcher Sean Osborne threw wild to first base, allowing both runners to score and Baehl to reach third.  Greg Wallace hit into a double play two batters later, but it still brought Baehl home with the third run of the inning.  Tountas and Wallace then hit back to back home runs in the seventh for the Aces' fifth and sixth runs to make it 6-2.

That was just enough for UE starter Mark Obenchain, who gave the Aces their third complete game of the year.  The sophomore righthander scattered eight hits and walked only one.  He gave up three runs in the ninth on Bronco Lafrenz's one-out home run that made it 6-5, but then got Ryan Strausborger and Brian Ramirez to ground out to end the game.

"I only had a couple strikeouts, but our defense did a good job and I felt like I had pretty good command of my pitches," Obenchain said.  "I felt fresh even at the end.  I didn't have too many innings where I threw a lot of pitches, so I felt like I could stay in the game and close it out."

The Aces are now 9-29 overall and 3-12 in the MVC.  Indiana State is 11-23 and 5-7.  The Aces host Tennessee-Martin Tuesday at 4:00 and Austin Peay Wednesday at 6:00 before returning to league play next weekend at Creighton.