Baseball can extend Mid-American Conference lead in weekend home series
Junior infielder Joe Houlihan bats against Eastern Michigan April 10 at Theunissen Stadium.
Bowling Green State University comes to Mount Pleasant this weekend for a three-game series, but senior outfielder Nick Regnier said he isn’t worried about the specifics of hosting opposing teams.
“I don’t even know their record to be honest,” Regnier said. “All I know is we keep playing our game, play defense first, the hits will come and keep pitching the way we have, we’ll have a pretty good chance to win.”
Regnier was awarded Mid-American Conference West Division Player of the Week after hitting .500, with seven RBIs and four steals. It was his first full week back after missing multiple weeks with an injury.
Bowling Green is 14-21 and 7-8 in the MAC, one game in front of the eighth and final playoff spot. CMU is 27-13 and 12-3 in the MAC, three games ahead of the next best team.
“They’re coming up here, they’re fighting to make sure they stay in a good place to try to get in the conference tournament,” said Head Coach Steve Jaksa. “Obviously we’re fighting for something too. We’ve just got to continue to play well.”
The 8-7 Toledo Rockets are the only winning MAC team CMU has faced in the past four weekends.
“On paper you see certain things,” Jaksa said. “But until you actually play them, you (don’t) know.”
Chippewa pitchers sophomore Nick Deeg, junior Sean Renzi and junior Adam Aldred will be on the mound Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively for CMU.
“Looks like the weather’s going to change to be pretty nice, so we’re kind of excited,” Jaksa said. “(We’re excited about) the ‘Hot-corner crazies.’ We have about 10 or 12 (students), they come down the third base line and have an opportunity to converse with the third baseman quite a bit and put the K’s up on the board.”
Friday’s game starts at 3:05 p.m., Saturday’s at 2:05 p.m. and Sunday’s at 1:05 p.m., all at Theunissen Stadium.
