Ball State University
Kent State
Cards Drop Series Opener, Host Kent State Again Saturday
April 13, 2007 | Baseball
MUNCIE, Ind. - The Ball State baseball team got off to a promising start Friday at Ball Diamond, but things went sour for the Cardinals in a 17-6 loss in the series-opener against Kent State.
The Cardinals (13-19, 3-7 MAC) and Golden Flashes (13-19, 5-5 MAC) are scheduled to play the second game of their three-game weekend series Saturday at 1 p.m.
Eric Earnhart led off the bottom of the first inning of Friday's game with a solo home run to put Ball State on the scoreboard first. Following a Justin Rogers double and a Matt Stoeklen single, Ryan Chenoweth hit a sacrifice fly to left field to score another run, giving the Cardinals an early 2-0 lead.
Kent State, however, responded with a four-run second inning, highlighted by a two-run home run off the bat of Jason Patton. The Golden Flashes went on to add five runs in the fifth inning, four in the sixth and four in the seventh to take a 17-2 lead. Ball State aided the Flashes with six errors on the day.
After allowing those two runs in the first inning, Kent State starter Evan Smith settled down and held the Cardinals without a run for the remainder of his six-inning outing. Ball State managed nine hits off Smith, who earned the win, but could not add any more runs.
The Cardinals did break through and find the scoreboard again with four runs in the eighth inning, including two on a Tyler Rogers double to left field.
Earnhart and Stoeklen led Ball State at the plate with two hits each, and Tyler Rogers' two RBI were a team-best. Kent State's Brad Winter and Anthony Gallas led all players with three hits each, and Gallas logged a game-high seven RBI.
Ball State got a solid effort from its final two relief pitchers of the day. Tom Mueller threw 1.1 innings of relief without having a run charged to him, and Luke Behning came on to throw a scoreless ninth inning while striking out two batters in his first appearance of the season.
With his first-inning RBI, Chenoweth now owns a team-best 22 RBI for the year. In the loss, Wayne Bond recorded a second-inning single to stretch his hitting streak to 10 games, the longest for a Ball State player this season.
