Late inning struggles brings down baseball against Ohio State in Bright House Tournament finale
What started out as a pitchers dual quickly turned into a blowout when Ohio State ran away from Central Michigan baseball in the late innings.
Rick Dodridge was keeping his team close with the Buckeyes, trailing 2-1 with only one earned run heading into the seventh.
The seventh started out with a Dodridge error on a bunt, after six pickoff attempts he started his next batter with a wild pitch, allowing the runner to advance to second.
After a flyout to center field Dodridge got a wild again, hitting the next batter to put runners on the corners with one out.
The next batter brought in both runners with a triple to right-center field, ending Dodridge's day, which was 6.1 innings pitched, five htis, five runs, two earned, two walks and three strikeouts and a loss bringing his record to 1-2 with an 1.98 ERA.
The runs didn't stop after Dodridge's exit.
Sophomore Sean Renzi got a sacrifice-fly before sophomore catcher Alec Ornelas caught a runner stealing second, he also ended the eighth inning that way, but not before OSU added three more runs.
Renzi gave up back-to-back singles after a walk to start the eighth which lead to two more runs and an exit for Renzi.
Junior Scott Mariner, but an error lead to another run before Ornelas' second runner caught stealing.
The offensive wasn't helping the cause in the final game of the Bright House Tournament in DeLand, Fla., home of Stetson University.
The Chippewas lone run came in the fifth after junior shortstop Noel Santos hit a sacrifice fly following a Ornelas triple.
As a team, they were only able to come up with six hits and despite a relatively solid start by Dodridge, four fielding errors was able to break the game open.
CMU, which starts the season at 3-7, will have travel day Monday before playing a two-game set in Daytona, Fla. against Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday and Wednesday.
