The Eastern Michigan University baseball team completed a home opening weekend sweep against Niagara University with a 12-5 victory Sunday. The win gives EMU a three-game winning streak.
Eastern Michigan (6-12) had three players with multi-hit games. Redshirt senior right fielder Bo Kinder went 2-for-4 with two RBI. Senior shortstop Tucker Rubino had a 1-for-2 day with three RBI.
Freshman pitcher Ryan Lavoie made his first collegiate start and got the win. Lavoie pitched five innings, gave up seven hits, three earned runs, walked two and had five strikeouts.
“I felt comfortable,” Lavoie said about his starting pitching debut. “I threw strikes for the most part. I gave up a couple hits, but it was good for the most part.”
Niagara (7-10) first baseman Ryan McCauley hit 2-for-4 and drove in two runs, including a solo home run in the second inning. Shortstop Jon Wilson was 1-for-4 and had two RBI. Starting pitcher Jim Fort pitched 5 1/3 innings and gave up nine hits, nine runs with eight earned. He also walked two and struck out three.
EMU won 19-10 Friday and 15-1 Saturday and looked to take the series finale of the Oestrike Classic.
McCauley’s homer led off the second inning to give Niagara a 1-0 lead. Wynton Bernard tacked on another run with his RBI double. Eastern Michigan answered back with two runs in the bottom of the inning to tie the game.
Niagara added a run in the top of the third with McCauley hitting an RBI double. EMU took the lead on a four-run
inning thanks to three hits, including two singles, two stolen bases and a double.
Both teams did not score a run until Eastern Michigan put up four runs in the sixth inning. Niagara used two different pitchers after EMU chased Fort out of the game. The Eagles scored the four runs on six hits and later added two more runs the next inning.
EMU freshman pitcher Ben Dartnell pitched the last inning. Dartnell gave up two runs with none earned. Niagara catcher Jesse Harris grounded out to third base for the final out, completing the EMU sweep of Niagara.
The weekend was a strong one for the EMU offense. The bats came alive and scored 46 runs on 45 hits.
“[The offense] gives us a lot of confidence, knowing that we don’t have to dominate because of the run support,” Lavoie said.
The Eagles committed 10 errors over the weekend. Coach Jay Alexander is still concerned about the Eastern Michigan defense.
“We still need to clean up some things on the defensive side,” Alexander said. “We made too many mistakes on the defensive side.”
Eastern Michigan will hit the road to South Bend, Ind. to play Notre Dame for a 5:35 p.m. first pitch on Tuesday. The Eagles return home to start the Mid-American Conference schedule versus Miami on the weekend of March 23-25. The games begin at 3 p.m. on Friday and Saturday while the finale will start at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
