Falcons Fall to Eagles Late Despite Strong Outing By Ace

Friday, April 2

Ypsilanti, Mich.

6:00 p.m.

Bowling Green State University

Eastern Michigan University

Derek Spencer (above) went 2-for-3 and had an RBI in Friday night's 4-1 loss to Eastern Michigan.

April 02, 2010 | Baseball

By: by Ryan Gasser, Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant

Box score
Updated Statistics

Ypsilanti, Mich, -- In a game that was settled between the bullpens after two stellar performances from Bowling Green starter Brennan Smith and Eastern Michigan pitcher Corey Chaffins, Bowling Green fell victim to an eighth inning EMU home run that broke a tie that lasted nearly seven innings.

After teams exchanged runs in the sixth inning, Smith and Chaffins dueled through the seventh inning and into the eighth. Smith continued to look sharp hitting speeds of 93 and 94 miles per hour even after surpassing the 120 pitch plateau and retiring the first two batters of the eighth inning. After forcing Ben Magsig into a ground out and striking out Todd Graves looking for his sixth strike out of the night, an infield hit deep in the hole between shortstop and third base gave the Eagles another chance at the plate with a runner at second base on a throwing error.

Following the hit and error, Ross Gerdeman relieved Smith after seven and two-thirds innings of work. His opening batter hit a ground ball deep behind the second base bag that freshman infielder Matthew Pitzulo stabbed, saving a run. Though the play at first was close, Zack Leonard beat the throw to bring up Matt Skirving. Gerdeman led the team with a 1.57 earned run average coming into the game, but allowed a three-run home run to the Eagle designated hitter on an outside pitch put over the left-center field wall. Skirving's home run gave the Eagles a 4-1 lead late in the eighth.

After a solid seven-inning outing from Chaffins, Joe Battistelli inherited the ball in the eighth. After striking out two to end a BGSU rally in the eighth, he ran with the ninth inning lead and closed the book on the game with a scoreless ninth. Despite Tyler Elkins reaching on a fielding error by the shortstop, Battistelli struck out Pitzulo to end the game.

Bowling Green entered the game as the 16^th toughest team in the country to strike out by strike out per at-bat ratio (.117) but succumbed to 13 total strikeouts on the night. Corey Chaffin struck out ten Falcon hitters to Battistelli's three. Brennan Smith countered with six strikeouts on the day, the third consecutive game he has had at least six punch outs.

Both Derek Spencer and Jon Berti had a pair of hits in Friday night's game. Spencer went 2-for-3 including a run-scoring single that painted the right field line scoring #T.J. Blanton# to open the game's scoring.

After Spencer's RBI single, EMU quickly tied the game in the next at-bat on an RBI single by Skirving. Skirving finished the night with all four Eastern Michigan RBIs.

Blanton extended his career-high hit streak to 15 games after he laid a perfect bunt on the right side of the infield between three EMU fielders. After Brad Argustin of Buffalo was held without a hit, Blanton now has the second-longest active hitting streak in the Mid-American Conference, second only to Northern Illinois' Troy White who extended his hitting streak to 16 games Friday against Buffalo.

Bowling Green loses their third straight game and falls to 7-13-1 on the season, 1-3 in MAC play. Eastern Michigan improves to 11-15 with a 3-1 conference mark.

The team will ready themselves for a rematch Saturday afternoon. The game has been rescheduled for 1 p.m., instead of its originally scheduled time. Follow the Falcons as they try to turn their fortunes around against EMU in game two through the online home of BGSU Athletics, BGSUFalcons.com.