Foley continues tear, Deeg bounces back during 2-1 Easter weekend
While it was Easter weekend for most students, the baseball team went to work at Northern Illinois.
Central Michigan took two of three games from the Huskies to stay in first place of the Mid-American West Division.
On Friday, junior Jordan Foley pitched for Central Michigan, throwing a complete game, striking out five and giving up two earned runs in a 3-2 victory.
Head coach Steve Jaksa saw improvement from Foley during the game.
“He really competed well,” Jaksa said. “I thought our whole pitching staff pitched well this weekend but the way he took it upon himself to close out the game was really fun to watch. I give him a lot of credit for that, and I saw him grow within himself. Overall he kept them off-balance.”
In the second game Saturday, the Chippewas rallied and scored two runs in the top of the ninth inning to win 5-3.
It all started when Alex Borglin walked and Tyler Huntey singled, moving Borglin to third. Adam Collins grounded to third, to score Borglin, while Collins reached safely at first when the Huskies forced Huntey out at third.
Neal Jacobs hit a ground ball, but the throw to first was wild, scoring Collins from first base. Tim Black closed out the game while escaping a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the ninth.
To Jaksa, believing in the team starts with each player believing in themselves.
"They just think the next guy is going to get it done," Jaksa said. "We put pressure on them and they made a mistake and we got the lead run.”
In the third and final game of the series, it was a pitchers duel between CMU's Nick Deeg and NIU's Alex Klonowski.
The two pitchers combined to throw 17 innings, allowing four runs and walking three. They also tallied a collective eight strikeouts.
Jaksa said he thought he saw some flashes of the dominant Deeg that has shown up from time to time this season.
“Deeg threw extremely well,” Jaksa said. “They got a couple of bloops on him. Their third run came on a two-out bloop single to center. Nick Regnier made a diving effort but he just couldn’t get it. He threw extremely well and looked like the Deeg of old, so that was encouraging.”
With the series win over NIU, CMU has yet to lose a series to a MAC opponent.
It all starts with preparing for a series, one game at a time.
“At the end of the day, that’s what you have to do to compete for a championship,” Jaksa said. “We still have four weekends to go. The most important thing to do is just get ready for the next series, the next game. We have to make sure we are ready to play.”
