KALAMAZOO, Mich. – The Western Michigan baseball team dropped the middle game of its weekend series against Miami, 12-8, on Saturday.
FINAL SCORE: Miami 12, Western Michigan 8
LOCATION: Robert J. Bobb Stadium at Hyames Field (Kalamazoo, Mich.)
RECORDS: Western Michigan (21-20, 15-11 MAC) | Miami (32-14, 19-7)
W: Clayton Burke (8-1) |
L: Evan Shapiro (0-1) |
Save: Carson Byers (2)
Miami opened the scoring with a tally in the third.
Western Michigan answered in the fourth, with
Avery Thielman and
Lucas Rick hitting back-to-back doubles to tie it. Moments later, a Miami error allowed Rick to score and gave WMU a 2-1 edge.
The Broncos extended their lead with a four-run fifth.
Cooper Hums led off with a triple and came around to score on an error. Western Michigan then loaded the bases with one out for Thielman, who doubled to bring home a pair.
Mason Pilarski then hit a sacrifice fly to boost the advantage to 6-1.
The RedHawks regained the lead with eight in the sixth.
Western Michigan pulled one back in the home half of the sixth. Hums was hit by a pitch to start the inning, advanced to second on a ground ball and then came home on a
Drew Howard base hit, trimming the deficit to 9-7.
Miami picked up three in the eighth to stretch its lead to five, 12-7.
Tanner Mally and Howard started the bottom of the inning with consecutive singles, and one out later,
Mark Mennecke brought Mally in with a base hit. WMU had two runners in scoring position with two down, but was unable to pull any closer.
The Broncos and RedHawks wrap up their weekend series on Sunday afternoon, with first pitch set for 1:05 pm from Robert J. Bobb Stadium at Hyames Field. For tickets to any WMU baseball home game, visit
wmubroncos.com/tickets.
