Bowling Green State University Athletics
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School Record Eight Homers Helps Falcons Down The Cardinals
April 11, 2008 | Baseball
April 11, 2008
MUNCIE, Ind. - A school-record eight homers and a season-best 22 hits, helped the Bowling Green State University baseball team to an 18-12 win over the Ball State University Cardinals on Friday in game one of their three-game Mid-American Conference series at BSU's Ball Diamond. Eight different Falcon hitters collected hits in the effort with five collecting three hits or more as BG out-lasted the Cardinals in a 30-run slugfest that was aided by high winds that hit the Muncie area.
With the victory, the Falcons improved to 14-12 overall and 5-2 in the MAC, while the Cardinals fell to 18-10 and 6-1, respectively. The BG victory also brought to an end the Cardinals 10-game winning-streak as the Falcons picked up their second win in-a-row after Wednesday's mid-week victory at Xavier
Highlighting the win for the Falcons was eight total home runs coming from five different players, as they bested their previous school mark of seven, which happened on three different occasions. The last time BG went yard seven times came back on April 19th of 2002 when they did so against Marshall as they improved their season home run total from 11 to 19 in the contest.
Leading the way in long balls was sophomore third baseman Derek Spencer who went yard three times, finishing his day 4-for-6 with four runs scored and three RBI. Also going yard multiple times was first baseman Brian Hangbers, who went deep twice, going 4-for-5 with three runs scored and a game-high six RBI. Recording single homers then were Marty Baird, Andrew Foster and Mark Galvin as the 18 runs scored by BG were the most since a 19-10 victory over IPFW last season on April 3rd.
The Falcons collected those 18 runs by scoring runs in seven of the game's nine innings as they took an early 2-0 lead in the top half of the first. BSU countered with three runs of their own to go-ahead 3-2, before the Falcons platted two more runs in their half of the second to re-gain the lead at 4-3. They would then pick up a single run in the third to a 5-3 lead going into the bottom half of the third, but saw the Cardinals knock in four runs to re-take the lead themselves by a 7-5 count.
BG would tie the game back up with two runs in the fourth, but BSU once again countered with a single run in their half of the inning to again re-take the lead at 8-7, which lasted till the top half of the sixth inning. That would be where the Falcons finally took control of the game, platting five runs in the top of the sixth to go up 12-8, a lead they held all the way up to the eighth where they added two more runs to go up 14-8, before platting four more in the ninth on way to the victory.
Earning the win on the mound for the Falcons was senior right-hander Nick Cantrell (4-3). The senior captain threw two innings of scoreless relief in the fifth and sixth innings, which allowed the Falcons to take control of the game.
He relieved starter Frank Berry, who went four innings and gave up eight runs (five earned) on six hits. Charles Wooten and Kevin Leady also saw action out of the Falcon bullpen.
BG didn't waste any time getting the game's scoring started in the first inning as Foster got the Falcon hitting started with a triple to center, following a leadoff pop up by Ryan Shay. Foster was then scored by Hangbers on a sacrifice fly to left field, before Spencer connected on his first of his three homers with deep home run to right to increase the lead to 2-0 right out of the starting blocks.
The triple by Foster was just one of four hits for the senior on the day as his home run in the top of the ninth, coupled with his single in the fifth and double in the eigth allowed him to hit for the cycle, finishing 4-for-5 with four runs scored and an RBI.
The Falcons went on to add runs in each of the next three innings as they trailed 8-7 heading into the sixth.
That would be where BG took control and opened up a sizeable lead with a five-spot in the top half of the sixth. Ryan Schlater led the inning off with a single to left that was followed by a two-runner from Baird to straight center field. One out and an error later, Hangbers added two more tallies with a two-run homer to left center to make it 11-8, before hit his third long ball of the game to finish the inning's scoring.
Hangbers later added another two-run homer in the top of the eighth, while Galvin knotted a three-run homer in the ninth as the Falcons' finished the afternoon with a team batting average of .429 and a team slugging percentage of 1.041.
Taking the loss on the hill for the Cardinals was right-handed starter Tyler Pritchard, who surrendered nine runs on 10 Falcon hits in five innings of work.
BSU was led at the dish by a two-hit performance from both Wayne Bond and Nate Fields, while Justin Rogers added a team-best four RBI.
The same two teams will meet once again on Saturday in game two of their three-game weekend series with the first pitch scheduled to be tossed at 1 p.m. Live statistics and audio for the game can be found at www.ballstatesports.com.
NOTES: With his hitless effort in Friday's game, Falcon shortstop Ryan Shay had his career-long 16-game hitting-streak snapped ... Shay had held the streak since March 7th ... Derek Spencer's three homers on Friday was just one long ball shy of the all-time school record for a single-game ... Andy Tracy holds the BGSU record of four homers in a game, which occurred on May 10th of 1995 against Wright State.
