Kent- The Kent State Golden Flashes faced Central Michigan in an elimination game in the MAC Championship baseball tournament on Thursday afternoon.
In the early innings of the contest, the game looked like it might be close all the way to the end.
Photo by Al Kornspan
Trailing 2-1, in the bottom of the fourth, the Golden Flashes scored three runs to take a 4-2 lead. That turned out to be all the runs the Flashes needed as they went on to defeat Central Michigan 10-2.
“A really good ballgame for us.” said Kent State Head Coach Jeff Duncan. “I am just proud of the way we played and responded after a tough one last night. We pieced it together today. I thought we did a really good job pitching wise. Central is really tough to play. They are so well coached as we all know. I just really like the way we played as a team. We played together and everybody contributed to this win.”
As coach Duncan mentioned, the Golden Flashes had excellent pitching performances. In fact, Kent used four different pitchers throughout the game, all of them throwing less than three innings.
Earning the victory for the Flashes was Richie Dell. He threw two innings of scoreless baseball and was relieved by Mitchell Scott.
Photo by Al Kornspan
Scott threw the final 2 and ⅔ of an inning, only allowing one hit and no runs.
“I just came in, in a big spot, and trusted my catcher, and trusted that we were going to get it done,” said Scott. “There are a lot of good guys behind me and we just got the job done.”
After Scott pitched the seventh inning, Kent State added 6 runs, scoring 1 run in the bottom of the 7th and 5 runs in the bottom of the eighth.
The big hit for the Golden Flashes came in the bottom of the eighth when St. Ignatius alum, Mike McNamara hit a three run home run over the left field fence to put Kent ahead 10-2.
Photo by Al Kornspan
With the victory Kent State moves to 42-15 on the season.
Kent State will now play Ball State on Saturday afternoon for the MAC Championship title and an NCAA tournament bid.
Kent State must win two games on Saturday in order to claim the MAC Championship.
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