'Top rung' worthy
Baseball clinches MAC regular season title, top seed in next week’s conference tournament
Players and coaches took to Twitter on Friday following CMU's 12-3 win over Western Michigan and Kent State's 2-1 loss to Akron, giving the Chippewas the outright MAC regular season title.
A pair of third-inning home runs from senior outfielder Nick Regnier and freshman designated hitter Daniel Jipping helped Central Michigan University baseball take a 5-1 lead Friday, a lead the Chippewas would not relinquish.
By beating Western Michigan University for the second day in a row, CMU clinched the Mid-American Conference regular season title and the number one seed in next week’s MAC Tournament.
With Kent State's 2-1 loss to Akron Friday, CMU wins the outright regular season title.
“I think we knew we were going to be in the running (this year),” said Head Coach Steve Jaksa. “We had a mindset that we wanted to get to the top rung. Nobody just gives it to you. Our guys have worked hard and have persevered.”
Sophomore pitcher Nick Deeg (8-4, 2.89 ERA) earned his team-leading eighth win of the season Friday, pitching six innings while allowing three runs on seven hits.
The Lake Orion native had a large lead to work with after his team scored five runs in the third, two in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings and one in the seventh inning.
While CMU (34-20, 19-7 MAC) struggled offensively to start the game against WMU starter Keegan Akin, Jaksa said his hitters made the right adjustments the second time through the order.
“The first time around in our batting order, they struck out five of our nine guys,” Jaksa said. “The second time around it was a little bit different. We put together some really nice at-bats, we hit a couple home runs–which is not that easy–and then he got rattled and he was out of the game.”
Eight different Chippewas had a hit, including three for junior outfielder Ryan Heeke. Senior catcher Tyler Huntey led the team with four RBIs.
Junior pitcher Jason Gamble (4-1, 2.81 ERA) threw 25 pitches Friday, playing for the first time since April 4. Gamble has six starts this year, but Jaksa said Gamble was sore after pitching one inning Friday.
This is the first season both CMU men's basketball and baseball have won the MAC regular season title since 1987.
The Chippewas will play one more regular season game–tomorrow at 1 p.m.–before kicking off the tournament Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. against the eighth seed.
Jaksa said his team is focused on winning tomorrow’s game, even though it’s already clinched the regular season title.
“I only know how to play the game one way, so we’re going to do everything we can to win tomorrow,” Jaksa said. “That’s what we do.”
