Niles, Ohio -- Milwaukee starter Cale Tassi held the Youngstown State baseball team to two unearned runs and three hits in 7.1 innings as the Panthers beat the Penguins 7-2 on Saturday at Eastwood Field.

Five of Milwaukee's runs scored on three home runs, and the Panthers also benefitted from eight walks. YSU, although hitting several hard line drives right at infielders, was held to five hits.

YSU starter Patrick O'Brien allowed four runs in the first two innings before settling down to keep the Penguins in the game. He walked three batters in the first inning, and Jonathan Capasso made him pay with a two-out, three-run home run to right. Mark Strey led off the second inning with a home run just inside the left-field foul pole, but O'Brien kept the Panthers from scoring again through the sixth.

Phil Lipari got the offense going in the bottom of the third for YSU when he hit a leadoff double down the left-field line. Lipari then went to third on a passed ball and scored on Drew Dosch's sacrifice fly to left.

The Penguins cut the deficit to two in the sixth without getting the ball out of the infield. Jason Shirley reached on a one-out error, stole second and went to third on a ground out. With two outs, the speedy left fielder raced home on a wild pitch to make the score 4-2.

Another walk, the first since the third inning, came back to hurt O'Brien to start the seventh when he missed on a full-count pitch to Michael Porcaro. With Ryan Krokos on in relief, Porcaro stole second and advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt. Alex Erdmann then brought in Porcaro with a sacrifice fly to right that made the score 5-2.

UWM's Phil Striggow homered off Padraic Williams with one out in the eighth, and Derek Peake scored on a wild pitch with two outs in the inning to put the Panthers ahead 7-2.

O'Brien allowed five runs on six hits and five walks in six innings of work. Tassi improved to 1-2 with the victory.

The Penguins and Panthers will conclude their series on Sunday at 11 a.m. The game was originally scheduled to start at noon but was moved up because of storms in the forecast later in the afternoon.