Baseball drops series-opener 7-3against Eastern Michigan
Baseball was unable to mount a comeback against Eastern Michigan and fell 7-3 in the series-opener at Theunissen Stadium Friday.
The Chippewas finished the day with eight hits, but committed five errors while the Eagles had five hits along with two errors.
"It was very disappointing, "said head coach Steve Jaksa. "We really fought against a kid who threw a two-hitter last week. We did a good job of getting the lead and we were trying to get a few more innings out of (Jordan) Foley. We made a couple bad plays and you can't do that in one run games. You just can't make the number of bad plays we made in the last few innings ... you have to go out there the next day and play. Some players do that better than others."
EMU came out in the top of the first aggressive with a sac-bunt, moving the runner over to second with one out. The runner scored from second base after a single up the middle making in 1-0.
Sophomore Pat Mackenzie reached second on an error, giving the Chippewas an ideal scoring opportunity in the bottom half of the first inning down 1-0 with one out. Mackenzie advanced to third on a sac-fly; but never scored.
Sophomore pitcher Jordan Foley started the game on the mound for CMU and looked good early. Foley allowed two hits and one run after four innings, along with three strikeouts.
Foley came into the game with a 6-2 record and a 1.78 ERA.
In the top half of the third inning EMU was threatening with two runners on and one out, but, were unable to score after Foley picked off the runner at first and another grounded out to first.
Jaksa said that it all starts with confidence and not thinking too much about the play that you need to make each inning.
"I understand sometimes the game doesn't go your way, but, the part that you have to battle is all the way through that lineup," Jaksa said. "We had just a couple good at-bats down there. We can have better at-bats as we move along. Confidence is a crazy things sometimes. As coaches, we can't go out there and hit for them ... you can't have players thinking too much about the play they have to make. You can't stay in the past; you have to learn from it."
Jaksa said Foley looked solid in his 6.1 innings of work.
"His early innings he couldn't throw a slider for a strike and then he started later to throw it better for a strike and commanding his fastball better," Jaksa said.
In the fourth the Chippewas tried to start a two out rally with back-to-back singles from freshmen Neal Jacobs and sophomore Cody Leichman. CMU was unable to score and trailed 1-0 after four innings.
The sixth inning was key for CMU as Mackenzie reached first base with a single and the advanced to third after sophomore Nick Regnier doubled on a ball hit to deep right center that was dropped by the center fielder.
Senior Jordan Adams tied it up at one in the sixth with a single up the middle, driving in a run and advancing Regnier to third with one out.
A squeeze bunt from Adams scored Regnier from third making it 2-1 Chippewas after six innings.
EMU came back in the seventh and were looking to score with runners on first and third with one out. Foley threw a wild pitch, scoring the runner from third allowing the team to tie it at two.
The lead was regained by EMU, 3-2, after a fielding error from junior Noel Santos. Another run would score for the Eagles giving them a 4-2 lead.
Freshmen pitcher Jimmy McNamara took over for Foley and was relieved of his pitching duties after 2/3 of an innings by freshmen pitcher Jason Gamble to begin the eighth inning.
It became a 5-2 Eagles lead in the eighth after a hard hit ball to third resulted in a throwing error by the Chippewas. Another run would score making it 6-2 due to another throwing error by CMU to home.
The Eagles would add a few more runs making it a 7-3 win leading into a 2:05 start for game-two on Saturday at Theunissen Stadium
