Chippewas surrender late lead, lose on walk off in ninth inning to Notre Dame
A week ago, redshirt freshman Dazon Cole gave up three runs, five hits and five walks against Michigan State in the sixth annual Clash at Comerica. Wednesday, he took the mound against another Power Five conference team: The Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
The result was very similar at ND for Cole, as he gave up three runs in four innings on four hits and five walks as the Chippewas (8-29, 3-6 Mid-American Conference) lost their third straight game, falling to the Irish (23-12) 7-6 on a walk off RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The Chippewas have won two of their 19 road games this season (at Bowling Green, at Northern Illinois).
Senior third baseman/pitcher Morgan Oliver replaced sophomore pitcher/outfielder Colton Bradley in the ninth inning. Oliver gave up a double and single to his first two batters. With runners on first and third, he walked the next batter to load the bases with no outs. Vierling was the next batter and he hit a walk off RBI single to left field.
"I thought we did a lot of good things today," Head Coach Steve Jaksa said. "I thought we pitched pretty good, swung pretty good and played pretty good defense overall."
CMU took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second, but ND would score in its half of the second. CMU scored one in the third and fourth innings to take the lead back. However, the Irish put two runs on the board in their half of the fourth inning, which tied the game back up.
Along with pitching, Cole was 2-for-4 at the plate with a walk, RBI and two runs scored.
"He's a two-way guy, so it wasn't really a difficult decision (putting Cole in the lineup)," Jaksa said. "We thought it would be a good matchup and we think he's been getting better. We just went with what we thought would be the best thing for us. Other than the strikeout in the top of the ninth, he did pretty good."
The Chippewas scored a run in the sixth and two more in the seventh, but the Irish tied the game on a three-run home run by ND’s starting pitcher Matt Vierling. He was 3-for-5 and had the eventual walk off RBI base hit.
The Chippewas will look to break their three-game losing streak this weekend at Theunissen Stadium with a three-game series against Toledo, starting on Friday at 3:05 p.m.
