An up and down pitching performance from Eastern Michigan’s Nikki Denman was just what the doctor ordered for Eastern Michigan.
The Eagles (11-15, 7-7 MAC) got seven solid innings out of Denman, who despite giving up six walks, ended up throwing a shutout to take down the Falcons (22-22, 8-6 MAC) 2-0 yesterday.
BG’s Emily Gouge was the hard luck loser as she threw five innings, allowing two hits and no earned runs. In the end, it was costly errors in the field, coupled with getting shutout that led to their demise.
“We’ve been playing great defense,” BG head coach Leigh Ross-Shaw said. “So it’s frustrated to let our at bats carry over our defense.”
The problems started early for the Falcons, who left five runners on base in the first two innings.
But the scoreboard didn’t show any problems until the fourth inning, when Eastern first struck.
Eagles’ clean up hitter Liz Flack got a one out triple thanks to a pair of errors. She got ahold of Gouge’s pitch and sent it to the wall where it bounced off D.J. DeLong’s glove. DeLong recovered nicely and got the ball to the infield, stopping Flack at second. But a BG miscommunication in the infield allowed Flack to advance to third. Denman helped her own cause by smacking a sacrifice fly to right field to bring home Flack for Eastern’s first run.
The Eagles struck next in the sixth inning when a Lauren Clark grounder took a bad hop and flew off BG second baseman Megan McPherson. Ashley Strauss followed that up with a sacrifice bunt in which both runners were safe. Liz Vrabel came in to stop the bleeding for BG, but a throwing error to first base allowed Clark to score and give Eastern some insurance heading into the late innings.
“What I’ve been trying to tell them is if the offense is off then we need to play great defense and have some great pitching,” Ross-Shaw said.
The Falcons got their pitching, but the defense struggled.
That left them with one option down 2-0 in the seventh and that was to score runs.
With two outs, it appeared as if the Falcons were ready to make one last run at a win as Denman walked Lindsay Heimrich and Jeanine Baca. That would bring Gina Rango and her 20-game hitting streak to the plate and gave the Falcons a good chance for the win. But after running the count to three and one, Denman forced Rango to ground out to second, giving Eastern their only win of the weekend.
The loss put a damper on an otherwise solid weekend for the Falcons, who beat Eastern 4-1 and 8-0 Saturday. It also sends the Falcons on a two week road trip with a home loss to think about. But after a slew of tournaments early in the season, the Falcons are getting used to road trips.
“Our whole season has been on the road,” Ross-Shaw said. “It’s always nice to play at home but we just let one get away today.”
The first stop on the trip for BG will be for a double header Wednesday against Western Michigan.
