The Eastern Michigan University (18-29, 8-13 MAC) baseball team lost its second straight weekend series when it dropped two of three games to Miami-Ohio University (11-34, 9-12 MAC) in Oxford, Ohio.
The Eagles started the weekend out strong with a 3-1 extra innings victory on Friday evening while relief pitcher Sam Delaplane (5-2) earned his fifth win of the season. Delaplane pitched five innings and only gave up one run on four hits, earning five strike outs.
Sam Delaplane has given up the least amount of hits to his opponents among Eagles pitchers who have appeared in 15 games or more this season.
But it was starting pitcher Charlie Land (3-6) who had a great outing on Friday. Land pitched six innings, and gave up no runs on three hits while striking out two. Miami-Ohio just could not figure out the Eagles pitchers in this game.
The score opened up in the first inning with a John Montgomery single to left center field, which allowed John Rubino to score, and give the Eagles an early 1-0 lead.
Miami leveled the score at one when first baseman Ryan Elble singled to right field, allowing a run to score on an Eagles fielding error.
The game stayed even through the end of regulation, but it was Eastern Michigan who struck in the 11th inning to close the game out with two runs. Tony Dileo reached second base on an error which then allowed both John Montgomery and pinch hitter Brennan Williams to score.
Delaplane then shut Miami down and won the game for the Eagles.
Saturday’s afternoon match-up between the RedHawks and the Eagles didn’t go the Eagles way, losing by a score of 17-6.
Starting pitcher Ryan Lavoie (2-5) was handed his fifth loss of the season. Lavoie pitched one inning, giving up five runs on six hits and striking out none.
Pitching was a difficult part of the game for the Eagles on Saturday. Five different pitchers manned the mound, and combined the team’s pitchers gave up 18 hits, and let 17 runs cross the plate.
Scoring runs to keep up with Miami University did not come easy to the Eagles on Saturday, as the team could only muster six runs on eight hits. The Eagles didn’t score their first run until the third inning, and only scored consecutive runs in the seventh and eighth innings.
Miami University scored runs in every inning of the game except for the fifth and the ninth, including a six run inning in the seventh.
On Sunday, the Eagles were defeated again by a large margin and despite holding the lead for three innings, the Eagles were once again thwarted by big run innings from the RedHawks, dropping the game 13-5.
Starting pitcher Jake Andrews (2-5) took his fifth loss of the season, but only pitched two and one-third innings. Andrews gave up five runs on two hits but struck-out five in the process.
The Eagles once again took an early lead in the first inning when John Montgomery grounded out to second base, but allowed Justin Peterson to score. Next, Mike Mioduszewski grounded out to second base, which allowed John Rubino to score and bring the score to 2-0.
In the second inning the RedHawks scored one run to cut Eastern Michigan’s lead in half. In the third inning the Eagles added another run to their tally, but it wouldn’t get them very far.
Miami exploded for five runs in the third inning, three runs in the fourth inning and four runs in the fifth inning to put the game out of reach for the Eagles. After the fifth inning the score sat at 13-5, and it wouldn’t change until the final out.
Looking Forward:
The Eastern Michigan University baseball team will travel to Rochester, Mich., on Tuesday May 5 to take on the Oakland University Golden Grizzlies. Oakland University has an overall record of 10-30, with a Horizon League conference record of 5-17. This is the first meeting of the two teams this season. And it is the first meeting between the two since 2011 when Eastern Michigan beat Oakland 4-3.
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