Andy Hudak’s RBI double in the bottom of the tenth inning gave the Falcons baseball team a 9-8 victory over visiting Central Michigan in the first of two games yesterday.
Hudak jumped on the first pitch he saw from CMU closer Nathan Pung and crushed the ball to right center, scoring Nolan Reimold from first base who was running from the stretch.
“We put Nolan in motion (on the pitch) with hopes that if Andy got a base hit, with the way Nolan could run, that he could possibly score all the way from first base and that’s exactly what happened,” said Falcons head coach Danny Schmitz.
BG (16-6, 2-3 in conference) trailed for most of the game and was unable to get anything going at the plate, until the bottom of the seventh when Hudak struck big for the first time. With the Falcons down 4-2 and Josh Stewart on at first, Hudak hit a 2-1 pitch over the fence in straight-away center field for his fourth homerun of the season.
Three batters later, Jeff Warnock scored on Tyler Wasserman’s RBI double to right to put BG ahead 5-4.
The Chippewas (15-9, 0-2), who were the Mid-American Conference regular season champions last year, wasted little time reclaiming the lead as they scored three runs in the top of the eighth to force the Falcons to rally again.
BG could not push anything across in the eight and was down to their final three outs when Warnock took the early lead to be the hero of the game as he ripped a 1-1 Mark Lundquist offering to right for a game-tying two-run homer, which scored Hudak, who walked to leadoff the inning. It was Warnock’s first homerun of the year.
“From the offensive end, we made some adjustments and kept coming back,” Schmitz said of his team’s late rallies.
Matt Hundley (3-1) picked up the win for BG as he pitched the final three innings of the game. He allowed two runs, one earned on four hits and struck out three batters.
Kyle Knoblauch started the game for the Falcons, giving up three runs, one earned on five hits and four walks, while striking out two. Keith Laughlin pitched 3.2 innings in relief of Knoblauch, allowing three earned runs on five hits.
“I was real proud of our pitching staff,” Schmitz said. “Kyle battled early, and Keith Laughlin, I thought, did a hell of a job coming in. Matt Hundley … threw some great pitches, and (Central Michigan) did a nice job of hitting some outstanding pitches.”
Hudak’s tenth inning heroics were helped by a major Chippewas miscue. Shortstop Ryan Peel booted Reimold’s one-hopper hit directly to him, which allowed Eric Lawson, who reached base on a walk to start the inning, to score from second base and set the stage for Hudak.
In the nightcap, the Falcons wrapped up their successful weekend by taking down Central for a second game, this time by a score of 8-5.
BG got six innings out of Burke Badenhop (5-1) who left the game after giving up five runs. Reliever Adam Gumpf shut the door on the Chippewas, pitching three scoreless innings to bring the win home for BG.
Offensively, Tyler Wasserman knocked in four runs as the Falcons took advantage of five walks by Central’s pitchers to get their runs.
Nolan Reimold and Josh Stewart scored twice while Andy Hudak scored three times.
