Baseball Drops Series Finale at Louisville

Sunday, March 1

Louisville, Ky. / Jim Patterson Stadium

1 p.m.

Central Michigan University

5-5

Louisville

7-4

Central Michigan

Louisville

Redshirt freshman catcher Logan Keilen had a two-run double in the first inning, staking the Chippewas to an early 2-0 lead at Louisville on Sunday.

Photo by: Lauren Verellen '26 - @laurenverellen_photography

3/1/2026 6:21:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Chippewas (5-5) begin MAC play next weekend at Ball State

By: Andy Sneddon

LOUISVILLE, KY. – Central Michigan pitching issued eight walks and its defense committed four errors on Sunday as the Chippewas dropped the finale of a three-game series at Louisville, 7-5.

The Chippewas (5-5) dropped all three games in the series. They open Mid-American Conference play with a three-game series next weekend at Ball State. Louisville, an Atlantic Coast Conference team which was ranked earlier this season, is 7-4.

Four of Louisville's seven runs were unearned. The Cardinals broke a 4-4 tie with two runs in the sixth inning when they loaded the bases with a single and two walks and then scored the go-ahead run on an error.

"We've been playing pretty clean baseball up to this point," CMU coach Jake Sabol said. "We just didn't do enough of it today, and that ended up kind of being the result here.

"We did a lot of really good things, but we didn't make some plays when it really mattered, and (gave away) too many free opportunities. You can't put eight guys on. We gave them runs. You can't give a top-25 team extra opportunities. We all know that. Our guys understand that too."

Logan Keilen had a two-run double in the first inning, and Greg Guzik had an RBI double and Miguel Correa Jr. drove in a run on a groundout in the fourth to give the Chippewas a 4-2 lead.

A CMU error led to a Louisville run in the bottom of the fourth and another Chippewa error allowed a Cardinal run in the fifth, knotting it at 4-4.

Correa and Harrison Bowman finished with two hits apiece for the Chippewas, who used nine pitchers. Carter Campau, the fourth CMU pitcher, took the loss.

CMU dropped the run-rule series opener, 16-2, and took an 8-5 lead into the bottom of the ninth in the second game of the series on Saturday when Louisville scored four runs to win in walk-off fashion.

"There's been a lot of good to take out of this series, there's also some things that we know we're not quite good at yet that we need to continue to harp on and get better at," Sabol said. "I was overall proud of the way we played. I thought we competed our tails off, especially after that ugly one on Friday. I give our guys a lot of credit. They played hard. They were ready to go again today.

"I know I keep saying this, but I do feel like we're in a really good spot. I do believe the guys feel that way too. We've got to make a few more plays, we've got to have another guy or two step up a little bit and get a few guys who've been everyday players for us going a little bit."

At 5-5, the Chippewas enter league play with a much better idea of their personnel and what roles both pitchers and position players will play as the season unfolds.

"That's what the early season stuff is for," Sabol said. "Yes, we're trying to win, and we want to put guys out there who are going to put us in positions to be successful and win baseball games. We've also got to figure out what we've got.

"There's going to be scenarios later in the year that we're going to need an extra guy or two to see if they can go do it when the environment presents itself like it did this weekend. We did that all weekend with a handful of guys, and I think we have a better idea now. Heading in the Ball State, I think we have a good collection of guys.

"Now we'll have to see, once conference play rolls around, who can be steady for us, who can be consistent."