The Eastern Michigan University baseball team won against the Miami RedHawks 4-2 Sunday. The win gives EMU a series victory to start the Mid-American Conference schedule.
Eastern Michigan (8-14, 2-1 MAC) had two batters get two hits in Sunday’s game. Senior Ben Magsig went 2-for-3 and scored two runs. Sophomore Lee Longo was 2-for-4 at the plate with a double and one RBI. Freshman right-handed pitcher Ryan Lavoie made his second start. Lavoie pitched 5 1/3 shutout innings, gave up four hits and a walk and struck out two to improve his
record to 2-1.
Right-handed reliever Joe Battistelli came in to pitch 3 2/3 innings. He surrendered two runs, walked one and had three strikeouts for his first save of the season.
“I struggled throwing first pitch strikes,” Lavoie said. “But I battled and threw strikes when I had to to get outs.”
Miami (13-11, 1-2 MAC) had three batters with two-hit games. Freshman Scott Slappey was 2-for-3 with an RBI. Senior Ryan
Brenner hit 1-for-4 and drove in the other run for Miami.
Redshirt senior lefty Shawn Marquardt was tagged with the loss after pitching 6 2/3 innings, gave up four runs, three of them earned. Marquardt surrendered six hits, walked three and struck out two to drop to his record to 2-3.
No one was able to score until the fifth inning when Eastern Michigan scored one run in the bottom of the fifth. Magsig got on base with a one-out walk. Sam Ott singled him to third, and Magsig scored on a fielding error by Miami second baseman Ryan Brenner, who had a hard time fielding a grounder off the bat of Jamie Simpson.
Eastern Michigan put three runs on the board with three hits in the seventh. Magsig hit a one-out single and moved over to second after Ott walked. Simpson hit a single to the Miami shortstop, but he threw it away, allowing Magsig to score as Ott moved to third. Daniel Russell pinch ran for Ott, and scored on a walk as Simpson moved to second base. Longo hit a single
to score Simpson from second.
Miami followed up with two runs in the eighth on four hits. Marcus Makuch led off with a single. Dan Walsh hit a double to move Makuch to third. Slappey scored Makuch with a single to end the EMU shutout. Brenner followed up with a single to cut the Eastern Michigan lead to 4-2. Battistelli only allowed two hits in the ninth, and then Miami grounded into a double play to end the game.
Coach Jay Alexander made some changes on defense this weekend. Magsig moved across the diamond from third base to first.
Senior Brent Ohrman shifted from the outfield to third base. Ott moved to the outfield from first base. The Eagles committed only one error in this series with the new defensive alignment.
“You don’t lose confidence in them, but you got to move them somewhere else to make the team better,” Alexander said.
Miami took the series-opening game with a 9-1 win. Eastern Michigan answered back Saturday with a 3-1 win. The Sunday win was the first error-free game for EMU since Eastern Michigan’s 3-1 victory versus Oral Roberts Feb. 25.
EMU will head to Columbus, Ohio, to play Ohio State for a game Tuesday with first pitch at 6:35 p.m. The next home game for Eastern Michigan will be against Michigan for a 3 p.m. start on Wednesday.
