Friday, March 19
Dayton, OH
3 P.M.
Central Michigan University
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Dayton
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Central Michigan
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Dayton
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Photo by: Allissa Rusco
Baseball Falls To Dayton On Walk-Off Homer
3/19/2021 7:06:00 PM | Baseball
Chippewas and Flyers set to play doubleheader on Saturday
DAYTON, Ohio – Riley Tirotta hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning on Friday as Dayton handed Central Michigan a 3-1 baseball loss in the opener of a four-game nonconference series at the Flyers' Woerner Field.
The Chippewas (5-6) and Flyers (4-11) are scheduled to play a doubleheader on Saturday (noon) and wrap up the series on Sunday (1 p.m.).
The Chippewas committed a season-high three errors, all in the fifth inning when Dayton seized a 1-0 lead.
"When games are well pitched and the wind blows in, they're usually lost more than they're won," CMU coach Jordan Bischel said. "You've got to give credit to Dayton. They got the big hit, but we certainly didn't do a lot to help ourselves there.
"On a tough day to hit (Tirotta) took a really good swing and won the game for them. You've got to give credit where it's due."
CMU tied the game 1-1 in the top of the eighth when Drew Lechnir reached on a third-strike wild pitch and then went to third on Zach Lechnir's double. Drew Lechnir scored on a wild pitch.
In the bottom of the ninth, CMU reliever Garrett Navarra issued a leadoff walk and Tirotta homered on a 1-2 pitch from Ian Leatherman (0-1) to end the game.
Chippewa starter Jordan Patty allowed one run (unearned) on three hits and struck out three over 6 1/3 innings and lowered his earned run average to 3.92.
"Numbers can be a little deceiving early in the year," Bischel said. "He had a tough outing against VCU (two weeks ago) and that kind of threw him off, but he did a great job protecting the strike zone (today).
"He didn't have a lot of strikeouts, but we don't really preach that. He got a lot of weak balls in play and he got a lot of easy outs and we're pretty confident that anytime we give him the ball he's going to give us a chance."
The Chippewas finished with five hits including a double by Zach Heeke.
"The big thing is that it's still early in the season and that we figure out what we can learn from these games," Bischel said. "When we don't really play our brand of baseball, we understand there's not a huge margin for error when you don't have a lot of power and things like that. Hopefully we learn from it."
The Chippewas (5-6) and Flyers (4-11) are scheduled to play a doubleheader on Saturday (noon) and wrap up the series on Sunday (1 p.m.).
The Chippewas committed a season-high three errors, all in the fifth inning when Dayton seized a 1-0 lead.
"When games are well pitched and the wind blows in, they're usually lost more than they're won," CMU coach Jordan Bischel said. "You've got to give credit to Dayton. They got the big hit, but we certainly didn't do a lot to help ourselves there.
"On a tough day to hit (Tirotta) took a really good swing and won the game for them. You've got to give credit where it's due."
CMU tied the game 1-1 in the top of the eighth when Drew Lechnir reached on a third-strike wild pitch and then went to third on Zach Lechnir's double. Drew Lechnir scored on a wild pitch.
In the bottom of the ninth, CMU reliever Garrett Navarra issued a leadoff walk and Tirotta homered on a 1-2 pitch from Ian Leatherman (0-1) to end the game.
Chippewa starter Jordan Patty allowed one run (unearned) on three hits and struck out three over 6 1/3 innings and lowered his earned run average to 3.92.
"Numbers can be a little deceiving early in the year," Bischel said. "He had a tough outing against VCU (two weeks ago) and that kind of threw him off, but he did a great job protecting the strike zone (today).
"He didn't have a lot of strikeouts, but we don't really preach that. He got a lot of weak balls in play and he got a lot of easy outs and we're pretty confident that anytime we give him the ball he's going to give us a chance."
The Chippewas finished with five hits including a double by Zach Heeke.
"The big thing is that it's still early in the season and that we figure out what we can learn from these games," Bischel said. "When we don't really play our brand of baseball, we understand there's not a huge margin for error when you don't have a lot of power and things like that. Hopefully we learn from it."
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Justin Longbrake (1-0)
L: Leatherman, Ian (0-1)
Batting:
2B: Lechnir, Zach 1 ; Heeke, Zach 1
SH: Gilles, Zach 1 ; Dardas, Nick 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Lechnir, Drew 1
SB: Gilles, Zach 1
CS: Simpson, Justin 1
Batting:
HR: Riley Tirotta 1
RBI: Riley Tirotta 2
SH: Eddie Pursinger 1 ; Jay Curtis 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Anthony Steinhardt 1 ; Riley Tirotta 1 ; Jake Silverstein 1
SB: Jake Silverstein 1
CS: Mariano Ricciardi 1
Game Leaders
Hitting
AB
4
R
0
H
1
RBI
0
AB
3
R
0
H
1
RBI
0
AB
3
R
0
H
1
RBI
0
3b/1b
AB
3
R
0
H
1
RBI
0
Players Mentioned
INF
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RHP
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OF
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LHP/OF
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RHP
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