Kent State Takes a Pair in Ypsilanti

The Eastern Michigan Eagles (10-13, 1-5 Mid-American Conference) dropped their first home series to Kent State (14-10, 4-2 MAC) after losing the first two games, but stopped the sweep in a 2-1 win in the final game.

Game One: Kent State 10 - Eastern Michigan 2

Freshmen pitchers Eric Lauer and Andy Ravel showed why they are two of the best freshmen pitchers in the conference. Lauer, earning his sixth win of the year, tossed a six-inning one-hitter in Game One of the series. The lone run scored against him happened in the third inning when EMU shortstop John Rubino grounded out to short with runners on second and third, driving in outfielder Mike Mioduszewski.

Jake Andrews started on the rubber for Eastern Michigan, but his start was short-lived after his throwing error to first base on a sacrifice bunt led to a pair of unearned runs in the third inning. The bullpen didn't pick up his slack, either. Even though Tyler Russell was the next  arm out of the bullpen and allowed four earned runs to score, the real nail in the coffin for Kent State was when Ben Dartnell was unable to record an out with three hits and a run was scored against him in the fifth inning.

Ravel had no problems finishing things up for Kent State. The only run scored against him was when there were two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, which was already too late to be thinking about a comeback win for the Eagles. The two combined had a finishing line of four hits, two runs (both earned), three walks and five strikeouts. Eastern Michigan's pitching staff let up 15 hits in the loss.

Game Two: Kent State 6 - Eastern Michigan 1

Without skipping a beat, it was more or less of a repeat of the Friday performance. The Flashes offense did their damage while their pitching held EMU to limited success. Nick Jensen-Clagg (1-1) went seven innings, allowing only one run to score off of five hits. That run came off of the bat of Lee Longo, who drove in Sam Ott on an RBI single in the sixth.

Ryan Lavoie let up 10 hits in his five innings of work on the hill for the Eagles, but the Flashes were only able to generate two runs out of them. Freshman Sterling Sharp would later come on for a couple of innings, and all three runs scored against him were unearned.

Kent State's Jon Wilson, Alex Miklos and Cody Koch all had three hits a piece with a total of three runs scored.

Game 3: Eastern Michigan 2 - Kent State 1

A real pitcher's duel between Steve Weber and Brian Clark was an interesting change of pace to how the weekend was starting to wrap up. Both pitchers allowed a run to score in the first inning, then held each other to the 1-1 tie until the seventh inning.

Longo, who had an RBI sac fly in the first inning, led off the bottom of the seventh with a double deep into left-center field. Catcher Adam Sonabend reached base on a bunt single down the first base side, advancing Longo over to third. Mioduszewski would ground out to short in his at-bat, but it was good enough to get Longo across to score the run that would lead to the Eagles winning the ball game.

Though Steve Weber did a great job at silencing the Kent State bats, relief pitcher Michael Marsinek was given the win with no hits or runs scored against him in his two innings of work. Charlie Land would come on in the ninth inning to close things out and pick up his third save of the year.

Tidbits:

• Lauer lowered his ERA from 2.49 two weeks ago and now has a 1.96. Also, he now has a WHIP of 0.791. His opponents have a batting average of .140.
• Longo reached base in all three games over the weekend, which means he's now reached base in 30 consecutive games.
• Alex Miklos had seven hits over the weekend, three each in the first two games and was 1-for-4 in the finale. That one hit in Game Three was a triple.
• Zarley Zalewski was nationally recognized for his batting average. He only had two hits all weekend, but still has a very healthy slash line of .421/.486/.537, leading the team in all three categories (average, on-base and slugging percentage).