Central Michigan University
Northern Illinois
Chippewas Fall at Theunissen, 6-5
5/2/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. -- Walks, perhaps more than anything else in baseball, will drive a coach up a wall.
They will also cost the team that issues them dearly.
Central Michigan surrendered six free passes Saturday in dropping a 6-5 Mid-American Conference game to Northern Illinois at Theunissen Stadium.
The Chippewas slipped to 29-17 overall, 14-6 MAC. They hold a two-game lead heading into Sunday's series finale (1:05 p.m.) at Theunissen. NIU is 20-27, 8-12.
"We gift-wrapped too many opportunities for them," CMU coach Steve Jaksa said. "We walk the bases loaded in the first inning and they get a knock with two outs and score two runs. The sixth inning ... we misplayed (a) bunt. Now you've got the bases loaded and we walk a guy in.
"You can't give those guys that many opportunities."
Sean Martens went five innings in relief starter Nick Deeg and took the loss. Deeg, who has struggled in his last three starts, allowed three runs on five hits, walked three and struck out two over four innings. Martens (5-1) surrendered three runs on seven hits. He walked three and struck out one.
Deeg walked the bases loaded in the first inning then allowed a two-out, two-run single that put NIU up 2-0.
The Chippewas managed to seize a 4-3 lead after five innings, but NIU pushed across three runs against Martens in the sixth to take the lead for good.
A walk, a single and a bunt single loaded the bases, then Martens walked Johnny Zubek to force in the tying run. Brian Sisler followed with a two-run single to put the Huskies up, 6-5.
"Defensively I thought we played well," Jaksa said. "We just didn't pitch it as well. Sean had one bad inning and Nick had the first inning that was bad. I thought Sean ended up being pretty good. But just that one inning (where) he let them get to him. He'll learn from that and he'll get better."
"They played hard, they played well and we gave them opportunities instead of taking opportunities away from them."
The Chippewas collected nine hits off of four NIU pitchers. Joe Houlihan homered and finished with two RBI, Alex Borglin singled and doubled, and Pat MacKenzie and Nick Regnier had two hits apiece.
CMU drew to 6-5 with a run in the sixth on a Houlihan groundout, but they stranded the potential tying run at second base.
The Chippewas had another good opportunity in the eighth when lead-off man Nick Regnier struck out but reached first when the third strike slipped past the catcher, and he went to second on an error.
Andrew Frenkenreider, who earned his eighth save, got freshman Daniel Jipping to fly out to right field and struck out Houlihan and Zach McKinstry to end the threat.
Jaksa said he chose not to have Jipping, who shares the team lead with four home runs with Houlihan, bunt in order to move Regnier to third.
"He's not a bunter," Jaksa said. "That's not what his forté is right now. I think he's getting better and better, but in that situation, it's a fastball-slider (pitcher) and we were sitting on the slider and he just didn't put a good swing on it."
"Very disappointed that we couldn't do a couple things better and get a W today. But at the same time you've got to be able to play (from) behind, you've got to be able to play ahead, whatever the situation. We've got to be able to make sure that we have good at-bats whether we're ahead or behind and not get in a position where we put all the weight on our shoulders.
"We have to be able to do that and that's something that we'll hopefully be able to get out of this game."
NIU starter Nick Ormsby (6-5) went six innings for the victory. He allowed eight hits and struck out three.
