CHILLICOTHE, Ohio – Many of the CMU players hung their head on the rail of the dugout, staring, as Kent State piled on one another near the pitching mound.

The run is over.

The Central Michigan baseball team saw its season come to a close Saturday evening with a 5-3 loss against Kent State in the MAC tournament championship at V.A. Memorial Stadium.

"The games are so competitive, so intense, that to make it through you have to get a break," said a somber coach Steve Jaksa after the loss. "At the end of the day, I think our guys played their hearts out. I just wish it would’ve been a different result because I think they deserved that."

Senior Jesse Hernandez (8-3) took the loss, giving up three runs on six hits in 3 2/3 innings after starting in Wednesday’s 13-9 win against Ohio.

Hernandez yielded a couple of singles in the first inning, but was able to hold Kent State at bay for a while. He even retired the Golden Flashes in order in the second inning.

But fatigue started to show in the third. KSU got an infield bunt single followed by a monster double off the left field wall by Ben Klafczynski that just missed becoming a home run. A sacrifice fly from Anthony Gallas would put the Golden Flashes on the scoreboard and Jimmy Rider’s RBI single made it 2-0.

"Jesse gave us everything today," Jaksa said. "All of our guys did. We got as much out of him as I thought we could and then we moved into a different direction."

Kent State would score its third run in the fourth following an error by junior shortstop Robbie Harman and tack on two more in the seventh to open up a 5-0 lead.

Golden Flashes starter Kyle Hallock, also pitching on two days rest, was dominant for most of the seven innings he threw, giving up two runs on five hits while striking out six in the win. He held the Chippewas to three hits in the first five innings.

CMU (36-22) threatened to score for the first time in the fourth, but like in Friday’s loss against Bowling Green, the team could not come up with the big hit when it needed to. CMU left runners on base in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings as well.

"We had (runners on) second and third down 3-0 and Faiman hits a line shot off the guy’s shin and it goes straight up in the air," Jaksa said. "It easily would’ve been two runs with who we had on the bases.

"The next inning (sixth) we hit a ball back to the base of the fence with two guys on. Five more feet and it would’ve been a 3-run homer."

Trailing 5-0 into the eighth inning, CMU finally began to turn its offensive wheels with consecutive RBI singles from senior Dale Cornstubble and sophomore Scott Phillion. An RBI groundout by freshman Jordan Dean brought the Chippewas within two.

Feeding off the momentum into the ninth, CMU looked to repeat its performance from earlier in the day. Junior Matt Faiman reached base on an infield single to start the inning and junior Brendan Emmett followed up with a walk.

Things were just not meant to be as senior James Teas lined to KSU shortstop Jimmy Rider, who stepped on second and completed a double play to take the wind out of CMU’s sails.

"We battled through the whole game," Teas said. “Unfortunately, you can’t win them all. I’m happy that we overcome a lot of stuff this season. We played better than most people expected and we kind of molded together a pretty solid team.

"We won the MAC regular season – you can’t do any better than that. I’m extremely happy with the way things in fell place for us this season"