CMU baseball to open conference play on the road
Sometimes the weather does not always cooperate and sacrifices must be made.
The CMU baseball team is sacrificing three home games this weekend after its series with Miami (OH) was moved to Oxford, Ohio.
The recent snow storm that hit Mount Pleasant forced the team to reschedule its Wednesday game, losing a series to start conference play.
“There is nothing we can do about the amount of snow that fell,” said head coach Steve Jaksa. “At the end of the day we have to play and get those games in.”
The Chippewas were only scheduled to host four Mid-American Conference series but because of the snow storm the schedule has been reduced to only three home series.
CMU will play in its first MAC series this weekend against the Miami Redhawks with the three game series starting at 3 p.m. on Friday. The team will wrap up the series with 1 p.m. games on Saturday and Sunday.
Junior Trent Howard is expected to start on the mound on Friday, as the Chippewas look to get off to a good start in MAC play. Junior Zach Cooper is the probable pitcher for Saturday, with senior Jake Sabol rounding out the weekend on Sunday.
Sabol has been coming out of the bullpen as of late, but he will switch with senior Bryce Morrow and junior Ryan Longstreth, both of whom will come out of the pen.
Howard said the team is ready to start MAC play.
“We are all very excited for conference play to start,” he said. “We feel we have shown some good signs this season — we know we just need to put it all together and we have to keep getting better every day.”
The series with Miami (OH) last season was also on the road, as the Chippewas won two of the three games on their way to a MAC regular season championship.
Junior Bryce Redeker leads the Redhawks with a .368 batting average and 19 runs batted in. Miami (OH) is 9-11 overall but are only 1-0 at home as both teams have spent a majority of their early schedules on the road.
Junior Tyler Hall has emerged this season for CMU, playing third base and batting in the leadoff spot. Hall currently leads the team with a .360 batting average and has compiled 27 hits.
Sophomore reliever Dietrich Enns, who was a freshman All-American last season, said the team is just happy to be playing baseball this weekend.
“We are disappointed we can’t play at home in front of our fans,” Enns said, "but we are still excited to go out there and play some ball.”
