Baseball loses to Tennessee Tech after eighth inning rally
Another two out rally did in the Central Michigan baseball team Saturday against Tennessee Tech.
The Chippewas (8-11) had a 4-3 lead on the Golden Eagles (7-11) with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, but senior pitcher Ryan Longstreth couldn’t get that third out in time.
With two outs Longstreth seemed to be gearing towards putting away TTU, junior third baseman Michael Morris hit a single then sophomore first baseman Zach Stephens came up and hit a two-run home run to give TTU 5-4 lead. Then another single and home run gave the Golden Eagles a 7-4 win.
“He (Longstreth) got the first five guys out striking out three of them and I thought the pitch was down but the kid (Stephens) is a pretty good hitter,” said head coach Steve Jaksa. “There wasn’t anything wrong with Longstreth really I thought he pitched well”
CMU led the entire game up until the eighth inning after a two-run home run of its own from freshman third baseman Joey Houlihan and an RBI from senior catcher William Arnold in the third, and junior first baseman Jordan Adams in the second.
Junior pitcher Rick Dodridge had the start and went six solid innings allowing three runs on six hits and three strikeouts, but he didn’t enter the game in the seventh after two long weather delays.
“We had two weather delays and he came back after the first one which was from lighting so that is an automatic 30 minutes,” Jaksa said. “He pitched six innings very well and we wanted him to go seven but the second delay made it impossible to bring him back out.”
This isn’t the first time the Chippewas gave up some costly runs with two outs. In their loss to Madonna University all of its runs came with two outs, Saturday six of the Golden Eagles seven runs came with two outs already recorded.
CMU will be looking for the series win Sunday when freshman Jordan Foley takes the mound before heading back to Mount Pleasant for a game against Northwood Tuesday then starting Mid-American Conference play against Buffalo at Theunissen Stadium Friday through Sunday.
“We want to be ready to go tomorrow and win this series and head back home for a midweek game and continue into conference play,” Jaksa said.
