Baseball drops season opener at UNLV, 5-0
An error filled second inning from Central Michigan is all UNLV and ace Erick Fedde needed to get the 5-0 win on college baseball's opening day Friday.
A couple of errors by senior shortstop Noel Santos and redshirt freshman Alex Borglin allowed the Rebels to score their first run of the game.
Meanwhile, Fedde, along with closer Brayden Torres, were keeping the Chippewas at bay by allowing three hits while striking out 13.
"We knew we were going to face a good guy and we made a couple of mistakes that led to a few of their runs," said head coach Steve Jaksa. "We eliminate some of those mistakes it's a one-run game probably."
Fedde and Torres weren't the only duo who pitched well on the night.
The tandeum of junior ace Jordan Foley and senior left-handed reliever Kenton San Miguel was also strong on the night. Foley went 5.2 innings while allowing two earned runs and striking out four before San Miguel finished the sixth and shut down the seventh by allowing one hit in 1.1 innings pitched.
"(Foley) threw well and was around 100 pitches when we took him and he was just getting tired," Jaksa said. "I was very happy with (San Miguel). I thought he came in and threw for strikes and had good command."
Junior right-handed reliever Sean Renzi came in the eighth and struggled by allowing three earned runs in his one inning of work and allowed only one hit. The righty is coming off an injury and Jaksa has seen progress despite the poor outing on Friday.
"It was his first time in a long time being on the mound," Jaksa said. "I wasn't able to do that last year because of his injury and it has been a long haul back. From our standpoint we see him making good strides."
In the long run, it didn't matter how the pitching staff did with the batters going up against the likes of Fedde and Torres who proved to be too much for the Chippewas in the season opener.
At 4:05 and 7:35 p.m. tomorrow they'll look for senior right-hander Pat Kaminska and freshman left-hander Nick Deeg to get the team back on track while Jaksa will look for his batters to cut back on the strikeouts.
"We will be cutting back on strikeouts and called third strikeouts," Jaksa said. "There are going to be some situations where the guys can learn (from Friday)
