The Falcons ran out of steam and quality pitching this weekend against Central Michigan at Steller Field.
Rain showers throughout the day on Friday in northwest Ohio forced BG and CMU into a doubleheader on Saturday afternoon. The Falcons collected a 10-3 win in the first game behind another strong performance by sophomore transfer Frank Berry.
The former’ Longwood University pitcher moved his record to 4-0 this season with a seven-inning performance before Charles Wooten came in to close out the victory.
‘I thought Frank was very aggressive against a very good lineup,’ said BG coach Danny Schmitz. ‘He kept the ball low, and when he missed, he didn’t miss by much. Central can put some pretty good left-handed batters up against you, and Frank battled very well against them.’
The score was tied at two heading into the bottom half of the fifth inning, and that’s when the Falcon bats exploded.
Back-to-back-to-back doubles by Andrew Foster, Brian Hangbers, and Derek Spencer gave BG a 6-2 lead, and they didn’t look back.
Foster singled an inning later, and after Hangbers reached on an error, Spencer brought them both home again for two more insurance runs.
BG would add two more runs in the eighth inning to give Wooten a seven-run cushion, but he wouldn’t even need it. After walking two batters with two outs, the Elmore, Ohio, native struck out the final batter of the eighth inning, and didn’t allow a run or a hit in the ninth.
But the Chippewas’ bats would be much more effective, and the Falcons’ pitching less so, in the final two games of the Mid-American Conference series.
Kevin Light, another Longwood transfer, got the start in Saturday’s game two and cruised through the first three innings. Light had been helped out by his teammate Ryan Shay on the first pitch that the Falcon shortstop saw.
Hitting leadoff in baseball is not an easy task to do well. It is arguably one of the more difficult duties in any sport, though it seems to come naturally to Shay this season.
Stepping to the plate in the bottom of the first sporting an above-.400 average, Shay crushed the first pitch from CMU starter Dan Taylor over the left-field fence. It was Shay’s first home run of the season, though it may not be his last, the way he’s swinging the bat of late.
‘I pretty much just went up there hacking,’ Shay said of his home run that gave his team a quick 1-0 lead. ‘I hit leadoff in high school, so that’s where I feel most comfortable. I’m just trying to stay hot and get the team going.’
After this weekend, Shay sports a 14-game hitting streak, as he also collected a single in yesterday’s first at-bat.
However, Shay would be only one of two BG players to touch the plate for the rest of the game. Taylor tossed a complete game to earn his first win of the season for CMU, while Light took his second defeat, giving up three earned runs in the 6-2 loss.
‘Kevin Light battled pretty well, though he didn’t get a whole lot of help behind the dish,’ Schmitz said. He referred to home plate umpire Sal Giacomantonio’s strike zone that was quite possibly less than half the size of his last name.
‘But our kids played hard, and that’s all you can ask. Give Central Michigan credit. Dan Taylor threw a hell of a game for them after that leadoff home run,’ Schmitz said.
‘The young man had an outstanding performance, and you couldn’t ask for more from him,’ said Chippewas coach Steve Jaksa. ‘We needed that after we lost the first game Saturday.’
Offense would become the story’ yesterday, however, as Central Michigan managed to score in six of the nine innings to move their MAC record to 3-5 with a 10-6 win.
BG’s biggest problem on the day was spotting CMU more than their allotted out total via three early errors.
‘When you start giving the other team more than three outs per inning, you’re asking for trouble,’ Schmitz said. ‘That’s exactly what we did today. We gave them their first six runs.’
BG tried to mount a comeback by scoring two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning after going down 6-0, but Central was able to hold tough in the final five frames.
‘The most important thing was the ability for us to keep scoring,’ Jaksa said. ‘BG kept swinging well and they had those four two-out singles in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh innings, so they weren’t going to quit coming.’
While BG tried to play catch-up all game, CMU was the more aggressive team as they managed to get the first batter on base in all but two innings.
With the pair of losses, the Falcons fell to 4-2 in the MAC and 12-11 overall now in 2008.
