Saturday, May 8
Mount Pleasant, MI
1 P.M.
Central Michigan University
30-11, 22-4
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Ball State
28-14, 19-7
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Ball State
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Central Michigan
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Photo by: Jack Reeber '23,M'25 - @jackreeber.raw
A Split, And They'll Go At It Again On Sunday
5/8/2021 9:42:00 PM | Baseball
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – One up, one down.
And they'll play a big one on Sunday.
Central Michigan and Ball State split a Mid-American Conference doubleheader on Saturday at Keilitz Field at Theunissen Stadium, leaving the margin between the two clubs exactly as it was before the twin bill.
The Chippewas won the opener, 3-2, and Ball State came back to take the nightcap, 13-3. First-place CMU is 22-5 in league play, two games ahead of the Cardinals (20-7).
The series finale is set for Sunday (1 p.m.). A win gives CMU a three-game lead with 12 conference games to play. If Ball State wins, the Cardinals will be one game back, just as they were at the start of the four-game series.
"Everybody understands that the standings are close between the two of us and they're going to still be close after (Sunday)," CMU coach Jordan Bischel said. "In theory it's a big game, but at the end of the day, we can't really approach it any differently.
"Certainly, we understand what the standings look like, but we've just got to go play, compete, and no matter what happens (on Sunday), Monday will come and the sun will come up and we've got a bunch of college kids playing college baseball."
The Chippewas got a standout start from redshirt freshman Andrew Taylor (8-3) in game 1 on Saturday as he outdueled Ball State's Chayce McDermott (7-2). Taylor allowed two runs on four hits, struck out nine, and walked four over 6 1/3 innings.
Grant Frazer got the final two outs with the tying run at first base for his third save.
The Chippewas managed just two hits against McDermott, but they found a way to piece together enough offense to scratch out a run in the second inning and two in the third.
"Chayce McDermott, he's a high-level pro prospect for a reason," Bischel said. "He's awfully good. I thought we competed really well, put some good at-bats together and we may not have had a lot of hits, but we hit some balls hard and did some good things on the bases."
CMU's Chase Rollin drew a one-out walk in the second, moved to second on a groundout and scored on Aidan Shepardson's two-out single. The Chippewas used a hit batter and two walks to load the bases in the third, and then got sacrifice flies from Garrett Navarra and Jakob Marsee to up their lead to 3-0.
It was enough of a cushion for Taylor and then Frazer to bring it home.
"Taylor was good," Bischel said. "He had one rough inning with three walks where the strike zone kind of left him a little bit, and there were some awfully close pitches that could have gone either way. He handled that and worked through it, and (Frazer) was lights out the last couple of hitters at the end.
"If you want to be a high-level team, you're going to have to win a lot of close games. And if you want to win close games you've got to have guys out of the bullpen you can really trust. We've got a lot of guys that we feel like can get that last out in a game."
The Cardinals jumped on Chippewa starter Cameron Brown for five runs on six hits in the first inning of the nightcap and never looked back. It was the first loss of the season for Brown (6-1), who left after two innings.
The Chippewas, who are 30-12 overall, had not lost a game by more than four runs this season. They had not given up more than six runs in their last 15 starts, and it marked the first time since April 4 that CMU has allowed an opponent to reach double digits in runs.
"It's the first time all year that we've been blown out," Bischel said. "That's a credit to our guys and how they compete.
"(Brown) just wasn't real sharp. Ball State did a really good job and took some good swings and hit some balls hard. They had some balls that they didn't hit all that hard that found holes and you add all those things together and it turned into a little bit of a blowout there."
And they'll play a big one on Sunday.
Central Michigan and Ball State split a Mid-American Conference doubleheader on Saturday at Keilitz Field at Theunissen Stadium, leaving the margin between the two clubs exactly as it was before the twin bill.
The Chippewas won the opener, 3-2, and Ball State came back to take the nightcap, 13-3. First-place CMU is 22-5 in league play, two games ahead of the Cardinals (20-7).
The series finale is set for Sunday (1 p.m.). A win gives CMU a three-game lead with 12 conference games to play. If Ball State wins, the Cardinals will be one game back, just as they were at the start of the four-game series.
"Everybody understands that the standings are close between the two of us and they're going to still be close after (Sunday)," CMU coach Jordan Bischel said. "In theory it's a big game, but at the end of the day, we can't really approach it any differently.
"Certainly, we understand what the standings look like, but we've just got to go play, compete, and no matter what happens (on Sunday), Monday will come and the sun will come up and we've got a bunch of college kids playing college baseball."
The Chippewas got a standout start from redshirt freshman Andrew Taylor (8-3) in game 1 on Saturday as he outdueled Ball State's Chayce McDermott (7-2). Taylor allowed two runs on four hits, struck out nine, and walked four over 6 1/3 innings.
Grant Frazer got the final two outs with the tying run at first base for his third save.
The Chippewas managed just two hits against McDermott, but they found a way to piece together enough offense to scratch out a run in the second inning and two in the third.
"Chayce McDermott, he's a high-level pro prospect for a reason," Bischel said. "He's awfully good. I thought we competed really well, put some good at-bats together and we may not have had a lot of hits, but we hit some balls hard and did some good things on the bases."
CMU's Chase Rollin drew a one-out walk in the second, moved to second on a groundout and scored on Aidan Shepardson's two-out single. The Chippewas used a hit batter and two walks to load the bases in the third, and then got sacrifice flies from Garrett Navarra and Jakob Marsee to up their lead to 3-0.
It was enough of a cushion for Taylor and then Frazer to bring it home.
"Taylor was good," Bischel said. "He had one rough inning with three walks where the strike zone kind of left him a little bit, and there were some awfully close pitches that could have gone either way. He handled that and worked through it, and (Frazer) was lights out the last couple of hitters at the end.
"If you want to be a high-level team, you're going to have to win a lot of close games. And if you want to win close games you've got to have guys out of the bullpen you can really trust. We've got a lot of guys that we feel like can get that last out in a game."
The Cardinals jumped on Chippewa starter Cameron Brown for five runs on six hits in the first inning of the nightcap and never looked back. It was the first loss of the season for Brown (6-1), who left after two innings.
The Chippewas, who are 30-12 overall, had not lost a game by more than four runs this season. They had not given up more than six runs in their last 15 starts, and it marked the first time since April 4 that CMU has allowed an opponent to reach double digits in runs.
"It's the first time all year that we've been blown out," Bischel said. "That's a credit to our guys and how they compete.
"(Brown) just wasn't real sharp. Ball State did a really good job and took some good swings and hit some balls hard. They had some balls that they didn't hit all that hard that found holes and you add all those things together and it turned into a little bit of a blowout there."
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Taylor, Andrew (8-3)
L: McDERMOTT, Chayce (7-2)
S: Frazer, Grant (3)
Batting:
2B: TELLIER, Adam 1 ; POWELL, Nick 1
RBI: NAVARRO, Noah 2
Base Running:
RUNS: QUARTERMAINE, T. 1 ; SIMPSON, Aaron 1
Batting:
3B: Gilles, Zach 1
RBI: Navarra, Garrett 1 ; Marsee, Jakob 1 ; Shepardson, Aidan 1
SH: Simpson, Justin 1 ; Gilles, Zach 1 ; Rollin, Chase 1
SF: Navarra, Garrett 1 ; Marsee, Jakob 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Camilletti, Mario 1 ; Simpson, Justin 1 ; Rollin, Chase 1
SB: Simpson, Justin 1
HBP: Camilletti, Mario 1
Game Leaders
Hitting
AB
1
R
0
H
1
RBI
0
AB
3
R
0
H
1
RBI
1
AB
1
R
1
H
0
RBI
0
AB
1
R
1
H
0
RBI
0
Players Mentioned
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RHP
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OF
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LHP/OF
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OF/INF
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