On April 5, the Falcons traveled to Rochester, Michigan, to face the Oakland University Golden Grizzlies. The Falcons were coming off of a three-game win streak over the Akron Zips on the past weekend, but on Tuesday, old problems reared their ugly head.
The game started with a battle between the pitchers as neither team could get on base. It was not until a late two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth inning from Brandon Nigh that gave the Grizzlies the lead.
This prompted the Falcons to substitute the specialty pitcher, Jeremy Spezia, for the fastball pitcher Isaiah Seidel. Seidel kept the Grizzlies on their toes for the next two innings, striking out six batters in a row. The Falcon defense was firing on all cylinders early on in the game and they moved through the next two innings without much difficulty.
On the offensive side, the Falcons’ batters could not figure out the Grizzlies’ pitcher Quinton Kujawa. When on base, the Falcons continued their aggressive mentality. However, this tactic was leaving a lot of runners stranded on base or getting tagged out while trying to steal second, prematurely ending the inning for the Falcons.
The Falcons’ game turned around in the seventh inning when a double-play attempt from Oakland went over the head of first baseman Gabe Lux and allowed BGSU’s Tyler Ross to get home. Later in the inning, catcher Zack Horky made it on first and Nathan Archer hit a high-flying ball deep against the left wall to bring Horky home on an RBI triple.
But that was the only scoring that the Falcons could piece together in the game. In the bottom of the eighth, Lux was brought home after stealing second on a pop fly by Adam Furnas and Justin Fugitt landed between the two on what could have been a quick out for the falcons, allowing Lux to score on the error.
In the ninth inning, the Grizzlies brought in their designated hitter Brandon Nigh as their closing pitcher. Nigh quickly ended the game with a three-up three-down sequence to give the win to the Golden Grizzlies. As for the Falcons, they will look to get another win as they have a tough series ahead of them when they travel to Kent State University this weekend.
