MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – The Western Michigan baseball team outhit its rival Central Michigan Friday afternoon on the road, but the Chippewas came away with a 7-5 win in the series opener.
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Tanner Allison kept his amazing season going, adding three more RBI to bring his season total to 45 after his 2-for-3 ball game that included a sacrifice fly and a stolen base along with the three RBI. He entered this game third in the nation in RBI per game. The top of the lineup did a lot of damage to the Chippewa pitching staff as all four of the top-four players in the lineup had multiple hit games. Connor Smith went 3-for-5 with an RBI while Nick Vogelmeier went 3-for-5 with two runs and an RBI and Grant Miller went 2-for-4. Tyler Frank also went 2-for-3 with a double and a run.
WMU struck first, putting up one run in the top first off an RBI single by Allison that scored Vogelmeier, who reached on a leadoff single. CMU came back to add three runs in the bottom of the first and take a 3-1 lead.
WMU chipped away at the lead, scoring one run in the top of the second thanks to a Vogelmeier RBI single to score Frank, who reached on a leadoff double. The Brown & Gold took the lead with a big three-run fourth inning where the top of the lineup (Vogelmeier, Smith, Miller & Allison) all had singles in the inning. Jimmy Roche drew a leadoff walk to start things off and came in to score on Smith's RBI single. Miller hit a single through the left side to load the bases and Allison came up clutch with a two-run single to left center, making it a 5-3 WMU lead.
Central Michigan ended the game scoring the final four runs, with one in the sixth, two in the seventh to take the lead and another run in the eighth.
Jacob Piechota got the start for WMU, pitching 5.0 innings allowing four runs on five hits with three strikeouts. Kyle Mallwitz suffered the loss, falling to 4-2 this season. Both of Mallwitz runs he allowed were unearned.
The Broncos and Chippewas will square off twice more this weekend, on Saturday, April 15 at 2 p.m. and Sunday, April 16 at 1 p.m., depending on weather.
