AKRON, Ohio – The Western Michigan baseball team broke a 1-1 deadlock with a three-run ninth inning to claim a 4-1 win and weekend series victory at Akron on Saturday.
FINAL SCORE: Western Michigan 4, Akron 1
LOCATION: Skeeles Field (Akron, Ohio)
RECORDS: Western Michigan (6-7, 2-0 MAC) | Akron (6-9, 0-2)
W: Adam Lehmann (1-0) |
L: Taylor Bednar (0-2) |
Save: Turner Doran (2)
With one out in the ninth,
Mason Pilarski got Western Michigan started with a single.
Avery Thielman followed with a base hit of his own, and
Jacob Rowold was then intentionally walked to load the bases for
Nolan Zajac. Zajac executed a perfect squeeze bunt to bring Pilarski home, and beat it out to keep the bases full.
Tanner Mally kept WMU rolling, drawing a hit by pitch to plate a run. Mally went 4-for-4 and got on base five times in Saturday's contest. The junior has reached base in all nine of his trips to the plate in the first two games of the series to bring his season on-base percentage to a staggering .683.
Following Mally's free pass,
Drew Howard notched an RBI single to make it 4-1.
Turner Doran came on in the bottom of the ninth and earned the save for the second consecutive day, sealing the victory by inducing a game-ending double play.
Adam Lehmann picked up the win in relief after tossing scoreless seventh and eighth frames for the Brown and Gold.
Akron picked up its lone run of the contest in the bottom of the first.
After that first-inning tally, WMU starter
Sam Carlisle settled in, retiring nine Zips in a row and 14 of 15 at one point. The righty ended up giving the Broncos a career-high 6.0 innings and limiting Akron to one run on four hits while striking out four.
Carlisle's work on the mound kept it a one-run game until the sixth, when the Broncos tied it up. Mally led off with a double, moved to third on a sacrifice bunt, and then raced home on a passed ball to tie the contest at 1-1.
A short rain delay interrupted the seventh inning and both teams then threatened in the eighth, but neither could break the deadlock, sending the contest to the ninth still even at 1-1.
The Broncos take aim at a sweep of the weekend series over the Zips on Sunday at noon.
