Chippewas Hammer Past Bucknell, 22-2

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – The Central Michigan baseball team collected 19 hits and drew 16 walks on Monday in rolling to a 22-2 victory over Bucknell at Chain O' Lakes Stadium.

The Chippewas remained perfect on their spring break trip to the Sunshine State, running their win streak to five games and improving to 10-5. The Chippewas and Bison play on Wednesday (10 a.m.).

The 19 hits and 22 runs were season highs and the Chippewa offensive onslaught came one day after CMU collected 15 hits and scored 15 runs in a victory at North Florida.

"With our fifth game in four days it would have been easy to come out flat today," CMU coach Jordan Bischel said. "I thought our guys challenged themselves from the start to be excited to play, which was the key to the game.

"We've been seeing more consistent production through the order which is adding pressure to other teams' pitching staffs."

Zach Heeke led the Chippewas with four hits including a double and Zach Gilles had an inside-the-park two-run homer. It was the second career homer for Gilles, a senior outfielder.

Garrett Navarra, Griffin Lockwood-Powell, Chase Rollin, Drew Lechnir, Aidan Shepardson and Jakob Marsee had two hits each.

Lechnir led CMU with five RBI, while Shepardson had four.

Freshman Andrew Taylor (1-0) started and earned the victory. He allowed two runs on four hits, walked three and struck out four over four innings.

Logan Buczkowski, Grant Frazer and Ian Leatherman each pitched an inning of relief. They combined to strike out seven and walk one. The game was called after seven innings on the run rule.

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Team Stats

Zach Heeke

Garrett Navarra

Griffin Lockwood-Powell

Chase Rollin

Players Mentioned

Logan Buczkowski

Grant Frazer

Zach Gilles

Zach Heeke

Ian Leatherman

Drew Lechnir

Griffin Lockwood-Powell

Jakob Marsee

Garrett Navarra

Chase Rollin

Aidan Shepardson

Andrew Taylor