Central Michigan University
Tennessee
CMU Baseball Drops Finale In Arizona
2/28/2016 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
PHOENIX - The Central Michigan baseball team returns from its second road trip of the season still seeking its first win.
Tennessee collected 19 hits and took advantage of seven Chippewa errors on Sunday in handing CMU a 20-1 loss in the Chippewas' fourth and final game of the Grand Canyon Classic.
CMU (0-7) returns to Mount Pleasant, briefly, before heading to Florida for Spring Break, where it will play eight games in nine days beginning on Friday with a game against Illinois at Stetson University's Melching Field in DeLand.
"You have to be able to move on and be able to play with the confidence that I know they have," CMU coach Steve Jaksa said. "At times - at times -- they didn't play with that kind of confidence. And sometimes maybe you press a little bit or think too much about it.
"Those are things that when you're fighting to get a W can get in the way. You need to play the game the way you've been taught and good things are going to happen. And we need to just play, go out and play."
Red-shirt freshman right-hander Pat Leatherman started and took the loss on Sunday. He surrendered nine runs (eight earned) on eight hits in 1 1/3 innings.
Adam Aldred, Jimmy McNamara, Jordan Grosjean and Dazon Cole each worked in relief for the Chippewas.
The Chippewas collected eight hits, two by Daniel Jipping. Dylan Goodwin added a double.
Arkansas swept CMU in a three-game season-opening series last weekend. The Chippewas were relatively competitive in all three of those games.
At Grand Canyon, the Chippewas dropped a 5-4 decision in their opener against the host Antelopes, and fell again to Grand Canyon on Saturday night, 3-1. In both cases, Grand Canyon got the eventual winning runs in its final turn at bat.
"This weekend, as last weekend, we had a couple really tight ball games," Jaksa said. "The first one, we couldn't figure out a way to close it out. Saturday's game, same thing; we needed a two-out knock and we couldn't get it."
The Chippewas also dropped a 15-4 decision to St. Mary's (Calif.), during which CMU pitching issued 15 walks. And CMU committed 15 errors in the four games it played this weekend.
"We've got to regroup in a couple areas," Jaksa said. "We know that. We've got to look for some consistent offensive output and consistent defense. Same thing on the mound. We need to look at it and figure out what's going to be the best, most consistent, on offense and on defense."
