Baseball inches closer to MAC regular season title with win over Western Michigan
Junior third baseman Joe Houlihan waits for a pitch May 12 against Michigan State University at Theunissen Stadium.
The Central Michigan University baseball team had zero extra-base hits in Thursday’s game against Western Michigan University.
Yet the Chippewas escaped. They manufactured runs while junior pitcher Sean Renzi (5-1, 2.17 ERA) pitched eight shutout innings, giving CMU (33-20, 18-7 Mid American Conference) the 3-1 victory in the opening game of the series.
"(Renzi) was really good," said Head Coach Steve Jaksa. "His fastball was explosive and he was able to dominate with that."
Renzi didn’t give up a hit until the fourth inning and allowed four hits, three walks and zero runs in his eight innings. But the Illinois native didn’t get a chance to pick up his first career complete game.
The Broncos nearly mounted a comeback in the bottom of the ninth against senior pitcher Tim Black, scoring one and loading the bases to put the winning run on first base.
Black retired the first two batters and stuck out the third, but the runner reached base after senior catcher Tyler Huntey dropped the third strike to keep WMU alive. The Broncos then had back-to-back-to-back singles before grounding out to end the game.
"Just unbelievable," Jaksa said. "All of a sudden they're a base hit away from tying the ball game. But hey, we had the right guys out there. We played good defense. Joe (Houlihan) made a nice little play and we move on to tomorrow."
Black picked up his 11th save of the season, breaking the record for the most in a single season in program history.
CMU got out to an early lead Thursday when senior second baseman Pat MacKenzie was hit by a pitch, Huntey singled and senior outfielder Nick Regnier singled to score MacKenzie.
The other two runs came in the sixth inning on a trio of singles from underclassmen and a pair of sacrifice bunts.
Western Michigan needs just one win this weekend to clinch a spot in next week’s MAC Tournament, while CMU needs one more win to earn the MAC regular season title.
Kent State University, which trailed CMU by one game going into Thursday, begins its weekend series with Akron Thursday night at 6:30 p.m.
CMU and WMU will play Friday and Saturday at Robert J. Bobb Stadium in Kalamazoo to finish out the regular season.
