Central Michigan University
Madonna
Error-Prone Chippewas Fall To Madonna
4/12/2017 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - The Central Michigan baseball team committed a season-high five errors on Wednesday in dropping a 6-4 nonleague game to Madonna at Theunissen Stadium.
The loss snapped CMU's seven-game win streak and dropped the Chipppewas to 17-15. Madonna is 22-12.
"Really disappointing from that standpoint, and not a lot of them necessarily tough plays either," CMU coach Steve Jaksa said of the errors that led to three unearned runs. "I don't think in the seven-game win streak we made five errors all added together. We just don't make errors. That was something we haven't done. I don't expect that they'll allow themselves to do it again.
"I think part of it was we didn't have that edge that I'd like us to have through the whole game. We just weren't the kind of team we needed to be tonight to win."
The Chippewas play host to rival Western Michigan in a three-game Mid-American Conference series beginning on Friday (3:05 p.m.). CMU is 6-0 in league play, the lone unbeaten team in the MAC, and they lead the West Division by two games.
Western Michigan is 13-15, 3-6 MAC, and has lost five consecutive games.
Jaksa dismissed speculation that perhaps the Chippewas were looking past the NAIA Crusaders to Western, which is always a red-letter date on CMU's schedule.
"I certainly didn't," he said. "It's baseball. You play the game that's on the schedule in the order that it's given you. Western's going to get here soon enough, and when they get here we need to be ready and we will be ready, but at the same time you don't look past the team that you're playing, whoever it is.
"If you're competitive, it doesn't matter who it is. If it's your sister, your brother, your uncle you're going to try to get a W and do the best you can."
Jordan Grosjean started for the Chippewas, his first start of the season and his first appearance since March 29. He allowed two runs on three hits, walked two and struck out five over 4 2/3 innings. Zach Kohn, Jack Collins, Braxton Markle and Austin Smith each worked in relief for CMU, which allowed three unearned runs.
The Chippewas committed three errors during the Madonna half of the fifth, leading to two Crusader runs that tied the game, 2-2.
"I thought Grosjean did some things we really needed him to do," Jaksa said. "Jordan would have been out of the fifth inning without a run if we were a little cleaner.
"That was a really good baseball team. They've been winning 40 games every year. We needed to play this week and we needed to learn some things. And we learned some things we need to clean up a little bit. This team has responded every time I've asked them to do something."
Madonna went ahead for good, 4-2, with two more runs in the sixth off Kohn (0-4), who took the loss. The Chippewas committed one error in the inning.
Daniel Jipping had two doubles and David Cole had two hits including a triple to lead CMU's 11-hit attack. Alex Borglin added two hits.
"Offensively, once they got the lead, we just didn't put enough good swings on," Jaksa said. "We had a few, but not enough."
The Chippewas loaded the bases in the ninth inning and got a sacrifice fly from pinch-hitter Nick Stokowski to cut the lead to 6-4, but Cliff Landess got a flyout to end the game for his seventh save.
Madonna starter Zach Schmidtke (2-2) earned the win.
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