Double Header Brings Pair of Tough Losses to Falcons

Saturday, February 20

Louisville, Ky.

12:00 p.m.

Bowling Green State University

Louisville

Logan Meisler (above) looks to lead the Falcons as they finish their series with the Lousiville Cardinals today.

February 20, 2010 | Baseball

By: by Ryan Gasser, Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant

Box score - game one
Box score - game two

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- With Saturday and Sunday's baseball games rescheduled to be played as a Saturday doubleheader beginning at noon, the Falcons began an all-day battle with the Louisville Cardinals (No. 12, Ping!.com). After 19 complete innings of baseball, the Falcons drew blood but could not twist the dagger on the Cardinals with losses of 5-2 and 8-7 (F/10) to end their weekend series.

GAME ONE
Falcon freshman Michael Frank (Maumee, Ohio) took the hill in his first collegiate start and gave four strong innings toward the Falcon cause. He received some early run support from the top of the lineup in the first inning when Jon Berti (Troy, Mich) reached base on an error by Cardinal second baseman Adam Duval, taking second and third base on the play. Tyler Elkins (Hamilton, Ohio) ground out to the short with the next at-bat, scoring Berti from third to give the Falcons a 1-0 lead after one inning.

In the bottom of the second inning, Frank hit Jeff Arnold with a pitch and advanced to third on a Kyle Grieshaber single up the middle. Attempting to beat Arnold with the throw to third, T.J. Blanton (Sandusky, Ohio) errantly threw the ball, allowing Arnold to score.

Frank completed four innings of work, allowing no earned runs on two hits, a pair of walks and striking out one Cardinal hitter.

Bowling Green retook the lead in the top of the sixth when Berti again reached on an error by Duval at second base. Elkins followed again with a base knock, a double to right-center field, advancing Berti to third base. Dennis Vaughn (Kirtland, Ohio) grounded out to first two batters later, scoring Berti from third to take the 2-1 lead.

After the seventh inning stretch, Falcon reliever Ross Gerdeman (Fort Jennings, Ohio) allowed the game tying run to score on a sacrifice fly. After hitting Arnold with a pitch, he stole second base and advanced to third on a called balk, leading to the RBI sac fly by Grieshaber to tie the game at two.

Charles Wooten (Elmore, Ohio) entered the game in the bottom of the eighth inning to relieve Gerdeman after his three innings of work and the Cardinals tacked on the three runs that would decide game one.
After recording the first out of the inning on a Josh Richmond groundout to Berti at shortstop, Duval singled to deep short and was followed by a walk to Andrew Clark. Wright singled to center field, scoring Duval. After another balk was called advancing both runners to second and third, respectively, Wooten intentionally walked Phil Wunderlich to load the bases. Arnold then stepped to the plate and hit a two-RBI single to right field, extending the lead to three runs.

Game one ended after a double play ended an early Falcon threat in the top of the ninth, followed by Mark Galvin (Pickerington, Ohio) striking out for the final out in the 5-2 decision.

GAME TWO

After the game one loss to the Cardinals, the Falcons had to turn around and finish the day off with a second nine inning game. The Falcons set themselves up nicely with a seven-run first inning, but the Cardinals patiently chipped away at the Falcon lead to force an extra inning of play before taking the lead for good in an 8-7, extra-inning win for Louisville.

Falcon hitters one through seven reached base and came around to score before an out could be recorded in the first inning. Louisville pitcher Tony Zych did not record an out before being lifted for the day. With the bases loads following a Logan Meisler (Port Clinton, Ohio) and Matt Pitzulo (Poland, Ohio) singles and an Elkins walk, Derek Spencer (Oregon, Ohio) singled up the middle to score Meisler on the play. Dennis Vaughn followed with an RBI single to right field.

At this point the score was 2-0 before Ryan Schlater (St. Paris, Ohio) followed with a single to the right side, scoring two Falcons. Mark Galvin followed and ripped a single to left field to score Schlater to extend the lead to five runs. On the play, left fielder Stewart Ijames committed an error to allow Vaughn to score as well. Zych was taken out in favor of Niel Holland and after Galvin stole third, T.J. Blanton had a hit that made it through the left side, scoring Galvin. After one inning, BGSU had a 7-0 lead.

Louisville added one run on a Duval homerun to make the score 7-1, but all would remain silent until the bottom of the fourth inning.

Kevin Leady (Luckey, Ohio) earned the start, his first since 2008 after missing last season with an injury, and before the start of the fourth had only allowed the solo homerun before succumbing to another pair of runs. After allowing RBI singles to Stewart Ijames and Drew Haynes, Leady was taken out with one out in the bottom of the fourth. Freshman Patrick O'Brien (Boardman, Ohio) made his Falcon debut and ended the threat after allowing a single, but getting Duvall to strike out swinging and Ryan Wright to fly out to right field.

Two innings later the Cardinals put up four runs in the bottom of the sixth innings to tie up the ball game. Three back-to-back singles scored a run before O'Brien was subbed by Steven Barrett (Troy, Mich.). Barrett forced Duvall into a fielder's choice, scoring Drew Haynes on the play. After retiring Clark and Duvall stealing second, Patrick Martin toed the rubber for the Falcons. Martin allowed a double to left center, hit by Wunderlich, scoring two Cardinals before he retired the next two batters with the score nodded up at seven.

The Falcons had a chance to take the lead in the top of the ninth when Schlater hit a one-out double to right-center field to put the go-ahead run in scoring position late. Galvin took a walk before a new pitched entered the game for the Cardinals. Gabriel Shaw entered and struck out Clay Duncan (Norwalk, Ohio) and forced Blanton to ground out to second base, ending the threat.

After a scoreless bottom half of the ninth, the teams went to an extra inning to decide the game. The Falcons again put runners on first and second with singles from Meisler and Elkins, but a fielder's choice and a ground out ended the Bowling Green threat once again.

In the bottom of the tenth inning, freshman Cody Apthorpe (Windham, Ohio) took the mound but allowed the game-winning run to score without recording an out. Duvall began the inning with a single up the middle to be followed with a single to left by Clark. The next batter ended it all when Wright hit a game-winning double to score Duvall and end the game, 8-7 in ten innings.

After the seven run first inning, the Falcons were held to four hits for the rest of the game, and only two hits over the next 8.1 innings. Apthorpe received the loss in game two, while Shaw received the win.
The loss in game two gave the Cardinals the sweep of the Falcons, as Bowling Green begins their season 0-3. They will prepare for the University of Kentucky when they leave for Lexington for a scheduled three-game series with the Wildcat beginning on Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. ET.

Follow Falcon baseball through the online home of BGSU athletics, BGSUFalcons.com