Central Michigan University
44-12
No.6 Ohio
19-33
Smooth Sailin'
5/23/2019 8:11:00 PM | Baseball
Chippewas roll past Ohio in MAC Tournament opener
Not much different than the regular season, at least on Thursday.
Central Michigan scored early and often and finished with 17 hits on Thursday as it opened the tournament with an 18-9 drubbing of sixth-seeded Ohio at Sprenger Stadium.
The top-seeded Chippewas (44-12), who have won 16 straight games, play either No. 2 Ball State or No. 5 Northern Illinois on Friday (6 p.m.) for a berth in Saturday's championship game. Ohio falls into the elimination bracket.
CMU, which on Saturday won the MAC regular-season title, continued to punish opposing pitching as it matched its third-highest hit total of the season and collected 11 walks. The Chippewas batted around four times in their eight turns at bat.
"You always want to make it tough to earn those outs," CMU coach Jordan Bischel said. "Don't make outs easy. You're going to make 27 of them at some point, but make them earn them. I thought we did a good job today of not trying to do too much. Tournament game, wind blowing out, it's easy to get a little antsy and I thought we stayed really disciplined."
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Chippewas scored four runs in the first inning, highlighted by Zavier Warren's eighth homer of the season, and led 11-0 through four frames.
Chippewa starter Pat Leatherman (10-1) was the beneficiary of the big lead, as he went five innings for the victory.
"It was great to get off to a fast start, I thought that was big," Bischel said. "We did a great job of jumping on them early and Pat gave us four scoreless innings to build a lead and thankfully we were able to just keep going from there."
Bischel took advantage of the big lead to give his staff some work as Garrett Willis, Jack Collins, Ryan Palmblad, Ian Leatherman, Logan Buczkowski and Tyler Hankins each pitched in relief.
AT THE PLATE
Warren and Griffin Lockwood-Powell finished with four hits apiece as five Chippewas collected at least two hits.
In seven plate appearances, Warren reached base six times, raising his on-base percentage to a MAC-best .491.
"Zavier's been arguably the best player in the league all year," Bischel said. "It's just kind of what he's done all year. It's hard to expect great games out of him, but it's what he does. Impressive to see, but nobody was really surprised by it either."
Zach Gilles, Lockwood-Powell and Jason Sullivan drove in three runs each.
NEXT
The Chippewas, seeking their first MAC Tournament championship since 1995, will await the NIU-Ball State winner. The Huskies and Cardinals were scheduled to play on Thursday night.
If CMU wins its Friday game, it will play in the championship game at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Leatherman, Pat (10-1)
L: KUTT, Eddie (3-5)
Batting:
2B: STRITTMATHER, Ryan 1
3B: FUNDERBURG, Treyben. 1
HR: PIECHNICK, Tanner 1
RBI: LEVY, Aaron 1 ; ROTT, Rudy 1 ; RICHARDSON, Michael 2 ; PIECHNICK, Tanner 2
SF: RICHARDSON, Michael 1
Base Running:
RUNS: FUNDERBURG, Treyben. 2 ; STRITTMATHER, Ryan 1 ; ROTT, Rudy 1 ; PIECHNICK, Tanner 2 ; MCMANN, Connor 1 ; HAFNER, Trevor 1 ; SARGENT, Ryan 1
Batting:
2B: Lockwood-Powell, Griffin 1
HR: Warren, Zavier 1
RBI: Heeke, Zach 1 ; Warren, Zavier 2 ; Gilles, Zach 3 ; Lockwood-Powell, Griffin 3 ; Crum, Jacob 2 ; Rollin, Ty 1 ; Sullivan, Jason 3 ; Cole, David 1
SH: Rollin, Ty 1 ; Cole, David 1
SF: Gilles, Zach 1 ; Lockwood-Powell, Griffin 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Heeke, Zach 4 ; Warren, Zavier 4 ; Gilles, Zach 2 ; Lockwood-Powell, Griffin 2 ; Crum, Jacob 1 ; Rollin, Ty 1 ; Kratt, Evan 1 ; Rollin, Chase 3
SB: Kratt, Evan 1
HBP: Heeke, Zach 1 ; Gilles, Zach 1 ; Lockwood-Powell, Griffin 1 ; Crum, Jacob 1 ; Sullivan, Jason 1
