MUNCIE, Ind. – On a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon in Muncie the Western Michigan baseball team dropped game two of its three-game series at Ball State, 10-3.

The Bronco bullpen of freshman Easton Sikorski, senior Matt McConnell and freshman Brady Miller were stellar on the mound Saturday, going a combined six innings allowing just two earned runs on seven hits while striking out three.

RHP Brady Miller matched his career-high with 4.1 innings thrown against the Cardinals out of the bullpen. The Plainfield, Ill., native in 14 batters faced gave up just one run on one hit and struck out three, one shy of matching his career-high.

WMU's potent offense, which entered the weekend ranked No.22 in the nation in batting average, finished with six hits against the Cardinal pitching staff. The Broncos pushed two runs across in the fifth inning and one in the sixth.

Redshirt senior Andrew Stone was the lone Bronco to recorded a multi-hit game going 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI and a run scored. It was Stone's seventh multi-hit game of the season while extending his reached base streak to 19 straight games.

Fellow seniors Jesse Forestell and Jimmy Roche each registered an RBI on the day with Forestell going 1-for-4 at the plate while Roche went 0-for-3 but plated a run on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fifth.

Sophomore Blake Dunn extended his reached base streak to 21 straight games after going 1-for-4 on the day. Redshirt sophomore Logan Hudson along with sophomore Justin McIntyre each came around to score a run for the Broncos in Saturday's contest.

The series finale between the Broncos and Cardinals is set for Sunday, March 24 beginning at 1:00 p.m. WMU now has an overall record of 6-15 and is 0-2 in Mid-American Conference play.

For the second straight game Ball State got on the scoreboard first as a two RBI double to right center field with two outs gave the Cardinals an early 2-0 advantage. The Cardinals extended their lead to 9-0 by scoring one run in the third, four in the fourth and two in the fifth.

Western Michigan got on the board in the bottom of the fifth inning scoring two runs on three hits to cut into the Ball State lead. After a swinging strikeout to begin the inning, McIntyre laced a double down the left field line to give the Brown & Gold a runner in scoring position with one out.

In the next at-bat on an 0-2 count, Stone delivered with an RBI single down the left field line to score McIntyre and give WMU its first run of the game. Stone's RBI was followed by a Dunn double to right center field to post runners on second and third with one out. Senior Jimmy Roche struck a ball deep to centerfield the next at-bat, allowing Stone to score from third on the sacrifice fly.

Trailing 10-2 heading into the bottom of the sixth the Broncos added another run off the bat of senior Jesse Forestell. With one out, Forestell roped an RBI single to right field propelling Logan Hudson to score from second to slim the Bronco deficit to 10-3.

From the sixth inning on the Bronco bullpen shut down the Cardinal offense retiring nine of the final 10 batters. However, the WMU offense was unable to capitalize as Ball State retired the final 11 Bronco batters to clinch the game two victory.