OMAHA, Neb. – The Omaha baseball team extended its lead to six games in The Summit League standings with a 5-2 win over South Dakota State Friday afternoon at Seymour Smith Park.
 
Omaha (25-11-1, 17-2) took the series opener over the Jackrabbits (19-17, 11-8) behind a trio of performances on the mound and nine team hits.
 
LEADERS FOR OMAHA
Jack Lombardi went a perfect 2-for-2 at the plate with a double and an RBI. Breyden Eckhout also accounted for two of the team's nine hits as he also recorded a stolen base. Along with Lombardi, both Brett Bonar (1-for-3) and Parker Smejkal (1-for-4) recorded a double. Max Gamm finished 1-for-4 with a triple.
 
On the hill, Joey Machado tossed five strikeouts with seven hits, two runs and two walks allowed through 5.0 innings, while in relief, Grant Suponchick improved to 2-0 with a pair of strikeouts through 2.0 shutout innings. Cal Hehnke garnered his sixth save of the season in the final inning. SDSU's Tyler Olmstead falls to 3-3 on the year.
 
INSIDE THE INNINGS
The Jackrabbits plated the first run of the game on a single-RBI in the top of the second. An inning later, Omaha evened it up on Lombardi's sacrifice fly that scored Thomas DeBonville from third. A double-RBI put South Dakota State up 2-1 in the fourth, but Omaha answered right back in the same inning with Gamm's groundout-RBI that plated Bonar.
 
From the sixth inning on, Omaha notched three more runs. Gamm tripled and eventually gave Omaha the lead on a South Dakota State wild pitch that advanced him home. Smejkal then reached third on a double and an SDSU throwing error that scored Bonar, who also doubled in the earlier at-bat. A pinch-running Tyler Daugherty scored the fifth run for the Mavericks on another SDSU wild pitch in the bottom of the eighth.
 
LOOKING AHEAD
Omaha returns to action tomorrow for the second game of The Summit League home series against South Dakota State. The first pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. (CST) at Seymour Smith Park. Live stats and audio can be found on OMavs.com.