The 2025 Mid-American Conference (MAC) Baseball Tournament is officially in the books, with Miami (OH) punching their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
Falcon Media Sports Network was the only student-led media organization to cover the entire tournament with on-site coverage at Crushers Stadium in Avon, Ohio, doing so for the second straight year.
Our Tyler Kavalecz, Chas McNeil, Noah Seeley and Jack Rintamaa, who covered the tournament with broadcasts, written stories, social media pieces and photos, gave their Falcon Four takeaways from the tournament.
Tyler — Weather completely changed the tournament
The rain was a major factor in this year’s MAC Tournament.
Due to heavy and consistent rain, along with a few thunderstorms, only two games were played during the first two days of the tournament.
Sunday, which was supposed to be reserved for the second championship game if needed, ended up being used for the first and only championship game because of how much the rain messed up the schedule.
The rain also heavily affected Bowling Green’s exit from Avon. BG and Toledo had their game postponed from Wednesday to Thursday because of weather, and the MAC decided to try and start the game in a heavy downpour at 9 a.m. because of desperation, which is one of the more ridiculous and stupid decisions I have seen covering MAC baseball.
BGSU was outscored 9-7 by Toledo in the first two innings before a six-and-a-half-hour rain delay ensued. The rest of the way, the teams tied, with the rain-filled first two innings affecting the outcome.
If the weather had been clear, Toledo, who had made it to the championship game, could have been pushed to the brink of elimination after the first game, which would have completely changed the complexion of the tournament. Even with a fantastic turf field at Crushers Stadium, the rain and weather still affected the tournament in major ways.
Chas — Consistent hitting matters more in the MAC Tournament than pitching
It’s no secret that to win the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Tournament, you need to manage your pitching depth with the sheer number of games in a short time.
Through this tournament, however, it became clear that if you see the ball well and figure out your opponent’s pitching, you will earn an upper hand in the matchup.
Toledo is one of the best examples of this theory, as they entered the MAC Tournament as the second-worst batting team in the country with the strongest pitching.
While they did thrive on the bump, they ended up playing six tournament games, which obviously depleted their pitching staff, but they managed to win games by keeping their bats hot.
Players like senior outfielder Caden Konczak and sophomore infielder Charlie Scholvin managed to keep their teams’ run numbers up, which greatly relieved their pitchers’ duties.
This does not mean that the pitching staff is not important, as it is greatly needed to win games; however, nearly every team will begin to run dry on arms if they find themselves in the loser’s bracket.
Kent State was one of the strongest teams in the tournament with a powerful order led by MAC Player of the Year graduate student Hayden Jatczak, but their bats grew cold when they had to bat against teams.
Consistency is key if a team wants to punch their ticket to the NCAA Baseball Tournament, but the strategy may not fall as heavily on the pitching staff as you might think.
Noah — Having a bye is important in a double-elimination tournament
Miami (OH) was one of two teams to have a bye on the first day of the MAC tournament, and it paid off by the end of the tournament. The RedHawks only played three games in the tournament compared to others, such as their championship opponent in the Toledo Rockets playing six.
To put it into perspective, a regular-season series in the MAC is three games over the weekend. Miami essentially played a weekend series, while Toledo had to play two series in the span of four days.
The RedHawks were able to squeeze through the tournament with only four pitchers in total, including a standout complete-game performance by the MAC Pitcher of the Year in Cooper Katskee.
The Rockets finished with a total of 13 different pitchers throughout the games. That is why having a deep pitching rotation and getting enough regular reasons to win to be a first-day bye team is so important.
Being able to receive that covenant bye on day one creates a much easier path for teams to successfully move to the championship.
Jack — Momentum matters
My main takeaway from this year’s MAC Baseball Tournament is that momentum plays a big factor in teams making a run in the tournament.
We watched Toledo make a run in the tournament as the five-seed after entering with a 5-game winning streak and riding the momentum all the way to a MAC Tournament Championship appearance.
While other factors definitely matter in a tournament setting, momentum is the key.
