Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
Central Michigan
Chippewas Eliminate Falcons, 11-4
May 24, 2002 | Baseball
May 24, 2002
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - Central Michigan University got timely hitting and a solid pitching performance to eliminate host Bowling Green State University from the 2002 Mid-American Conference Baseball Tournament Friday (May 24). The tournament is being held at BGSU's Steller Field.
With the win, CMU (31-24) advances to Friday's third game to face Kent State, the tourney's lone unbeaten team. BGSU (32-22) is eliminated from the tourney, marking the fourth consecutive season that the host will not advance to the championship game.
The last host institution to win the MAC Tournament was BGSU. The Falcons captured the 1998 league tourney at Steller.
The Falcons, who outhit CMU by a 10-9 count, broke on top with a first-inning run off Central's Dan Horvath. David Barkholz had a leadoff single and took second on a wild pitch. Corey Loomis walked with one out, but Horvath got Kelly Hunt to fly out to rightfield for the second out.
Nick Elrod then drew another walk to load the bases, and Len Elias beat out a slow grounder to shortstop, with Barkholz scoring on the play.
The Chippewas responded, however, scoring four unearned runs against BGSU's Doug Flere in the second inning. Keith Sampsell walked, but was retired at second on a Tommy Grubb bunt. Grubb then took second on a wild pitch, and went to third when Scott Pickens reached on a Falcon error. Tim Groves singled up the middle to plate Grubb and tie the score.
Flere struck out David Latour for the second out, but Tim Bullinger hit a two-run double to left, and Ryan Krueger followed with a run-scoring single.
The Chippewas got two more runs in the third, with a Pickens single and a wild pitch plating the runs, and CMU took a 7-1 lead on Grubb's fifth-inning homer.
BGSU got a run back in the fifth, but could not score any additional runs after loading the bases with no outs. Tim Newell drew a walk, and was safe at second when Loomis hit a ball to the second baseman, whose toss toward the bag was dropped by the shortstop. Then, Hunt hit a single up the middle to plate Newell.
For Hunt, the hit tied a pair of records. The BGSU junior tied the school single-season record for hits (86), and his RBI tied the MAC seasonal record of 84, set last season by Kent State's John VanBenschoten.
After Hunt's hit, Elrod walked to load the bases, but Horvath got out of the inning with three consecutive strikeouts.
CMU put the game out of reach in the seventh when Pickens hit a grand slam off reliever Neil Schmitz.
The Falcons got a pair of ninth-inning runs on Elrod's homer to right, but could draw no closer.
Horvath went all the way for just the second complete game of the tourney. He allowed four runs (three earned) and 10 hits. Horvath walked six batters and fanned six in improving to 4-5 on the year.
Flere, the first of three BGSU hurlers, took the loss to drop to 2-7. He allowed six runs, only two of which were earned, on six hits in two-and-a-third innings.
Matt Hundley allowed four runs (three earned) in three-and-two-thirds innings, while Schmitz gave up just one hit -- Pickens' grand slam -- in three innings of work. He struck out four and did not walk a batter.
At the plate, Pickens and Mike Gates had two hits apiece for the Chippewas, while Elrod, Elias and Andy Hudak had two hits apiece for the Falcons. Pickens had five RBI, while Grubb scored three runs.
The Chippewas' total of 11 runs was the fewest scored by a winning team in the tournament's seven games, while the two-team total of 15 runs also was the lowest of the tourney.
