Bowling Green Beats MAC-Leading Central Michigan In 3-2 Thriller

Saturday, April 22

Bowling Green, Ohio

1:05 PM

Bowling Green State University

10-24, 0

Central Michigan

20-18, 0

Central Michigan

Bowling Green

April 22, 2017 | Baseball

Box Score

By: by James Nahikian, BGSU Athletic Communications

Final Statistics: PDF | HTML

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio – The Bowling Green State University baseball team evened up its weekend series with MAC-leading Central Michigan University on Saturday (April 22) with a thrilling 3-2 victory at Steller Field. The Falcons raced out to an early 3-0 lead, and then left three runners in scoring position over the final three innings to preserve the win.

The win was head coach Danny Schmitz's 689th victory at BGSU, which ties him for second all-time in career wins as a MAC head coach. Joe Carbone, who coached Ohio University from 1989-2012, earned 689 wins as the Bobcats' head coach. Fred Decker (Western Michigan; 1976-2004) is the all-time leader in wins as a MAC head coach with 791.

Bowling Green improves to 10-24, and 5-9 within the Mid-American Conference with the win. The Chippewas were dealt just their second MAC loss of the season. CMU falls to 20-18 (9-2 MAC) with the loss.

"What a huge character win for our team," said head coach Danny Schmitz. "I am so proud of the effort, and just the desire that our team has right now to compete. We lost yesterday in 13 innings, and on Wednesday on a walk-off home run, and to come out here today and play like we did, that's not an easy thing to do. We made a lot of big-time plays, and we got big efforts out of a lot of players. Everyone in the dugout contributed to the win today."

The Falcons scored a single run in the third, and then two runs in the fourth to take a 3-0 lead. Over the final four innings of play, Bowling Green's pitching and defense came up in the clutch in a big way. The drama started in the sixth inning with BGSU starter Zac Carey on the hill.

Central Michigan loaded the bases with just one out. Carey induced a slowly-hit chopper to third base. Cam Daugherty charged the ball, scooped it on a short hop, and then alertly fired it home to get the force out. Nick Glanzman then stabbed a sharply-hit ground ball at short, and stepped on second for the force out, allowing Carey to pitch out of the bases-loaded jam unscathed.

In the seventh, Central Michigan got on the board and knocked Carey out of the game with three consecutive singles. Nathan Lohmeier entered the game with runners on first and third and no outs, with a CMU run already across the board.

After a pop out to second base, CMU stole second, putting runners on second and third with just one out. A ground ball out to second scored another run, and moved the tying run to third with two outs. Lohmeier induced a fly out to left to keep BGSU's 3-2 lead intact.

In the eighth, Lohmeier started things off with a strikeout, but the next two CMU batters reached base. Lohmeier knocked a ball down that was headed up the box, and fired to first to get the second out, but the runners moved up to second and third on the play.

With two outs and two strikes, Lohmeier caught CMU's Zach Gilles looking for a called third strike. Lohmeier stomped off the mound, pounding his chest and running into the BGSU players that had poured out of the dugout. In the ninth, Bowling Green called upon right-hander Chase Antle.

Antle has been a starter for most of the season, but just this week, was moved to the pen. He recorded a scoreless inning in Wednesday's (April 19) game at Youngstown State. The hard-throwing righty retired the first batter of the inning with a fly out to center. He then walked the next batter, and started off the following batter with a 3-1 count. Antle completely locked up CMU's Daniel Robinson, who already had two hits on the day and is hitting .324 on the season.

The ball hit the handle of the bat, and was caught by Daugherty at third. Antle secured the win, and picked up the first save of his career by striking out Daniel Jipping with a high fastball. The swinging third strike marked the 29th strikeout of the season for Antle – just one shy of the team lead.

Carey, who retired the first 10 batters of the game, picked up the win to move to 4-3 on the season. He scattered eight hits, while walking one and striking out one. Lohmeier pitched two scoreless innings, allowing just one hit. He struck out two, and walked one. CMU's Tyler Hankins entered the game with a perfect 4-0 record across eight starts. He was handed his first loss of the season.

Glanzman and Jake Wilson started BGSU's run-scoring third with consecutive one-out singles. Riley Minorik then doubled down the left-field line, scoring Glanzman to give Bowling Green a 1-0 lead.

In the fourth, Justin Mott and Jeff Scott started the rally with back-to-back singles with one out. Glanzman moved both runners into scoring position with a ground out to second, and Wilson came through with the clutch two-RBI single with two outs to give the Falcons a 3-0 lead.

The rubber match between Bowling Green and Central Michigan will take place tomorrow (April 23) afternoon at Steller Field at 1:05 p.m. The Falcons are set to play at Kent State on Tuesday (April 25), before hosting a three-game series against Miami University over the weekend.