Bowling Green head coach Danny Schmitz earned his 399th career victory yesterday as his Falcons came back from a 5-4 deficit in the bottom of the eighth inning to win a big 7-5 non-conference game over the Dayton Flyers.
Schmitz, who came into the contest with a career record of 398-355-4 in 15 seasons, would become the first BG coach to amass 400 wins in a career with a win this weekend over Kent State — a team the Falcons will play a big three-game Mid-American Conference series with at home starting Friday.
For now, though, he is grateful for his Falcons battling back and ending a two-game skid after a tough 15-14 loss the day before to Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne.
“It was something that was real important for us,” Schmitz said. “We told the boys after getting back from Fort Wayne last night how important it was to come out and play a solid game today — we know we got a big-big series at home this weekend and today was a good sign for us with the way we played.”
Good play was what he got from his team as the Falcons allowed only eights hits on the day and swung the bats well throughout the game getting 13 total hits. This included three in the eighth as the Falcons scored three runs in the inning.
After Jeff Warnock popped-out for the first out, a Kurt Wells homerun to right field tied the game up — then after a Josh Dietz walk and pinch-hit by Steve Raszka the Falcons had two on and only one out. The Flyers then took out Jeff Mercer and brought in Craig Stammen to face Eric Lawson.
With a full count Lawson hit a two RBI triple to centerfield which broke the 5-5 tie and brought home the go-ahead runs. He tried for an inside- the-park homerun after the ball went all the way to the fence on a missed play by the centerfielder, but was thrown out at the plate.
“That last kid (Stammen) was throwing the ball really well and I worked him to a 3-2 count and he gave me a good pitch to hit and I didn’t miss it,” Lawson said of the winning hit.
All four pitchers for the Flyers worked hard throughout the game and got some big outs in previous innings to keep their team ahead. This included getting the Falcons to hit into a double play on two occasions to end scoring threats in the fifth and seventh innings after getting the first two hitters on base.
“We really got to capitalize when we get scoring opportunities and not let them slip away,” Schmitz said of the missed opportunities. “I believe the one inning we had bases loaded with nobody out and didn’t score and then the next time we had runners on first and third with nobody out or one out and we didn’t again — those are things you’ve got to capitalize on.”
Those who did capitalize on those opportunities to score runs where Andy Hudak, Lawson and Wells who each had two hits to lead the team and drove in five of the seven runs scored. Hudak was 2-4 on the game with an RBI while Lawson was 2-5 with two RBIs and Wells 2-4 with two RBIs as well.
The wind was blowing out to right field for most of the day and made Stellar Field into a hitter’s park.
Dayton capitalized on the conditions and took an early 1-0 lead in the first on a fielder’s choice hit by William Benoit. Then, after BG came back and took a 4-1 lead in third, the Flyers came back and got two runs in both the fourth and fifth innings to go ahead by a run. Their last two runs came on a home run by Bryan Chandler that cleared the right field fence by about 30 feet.
But the Falcon pitchers came up big as well and shut down the Flyers for the final 2.2 innings
“I thought our pitchers did a real nice job on a day where it was tough to be a pitcher,” Schmitz said. “We had tough defense with no errors today — yesterday we had five so we were really solid defensively.”
Adam Gumpf (3-2) got the start for BG and gave up only three runs on five hits in the first four innings.
Tom Oestrike then struggled giving up two runs on three hits in two and one-third innings of relief before Brett Browning and Matt Hundley came on in the final two and two-third innings to combine for five strikeouts and no hits.
Browning (2-0) picked up the win and Hundley got his fourth save on the year as the Falcons move to 23-11 on the season. Mercer (0-1) got the loss for the Flyers who fall to 22-15 on the year.
BG will next face Kent State on Friday, Saturday and Sunday before facing Xavier next Wednesday as part of this seven game home stretch. The first pitch will be thrown at 3 p.m.
