Ball State University Athletics
Ball State University
Notre Dame
Baseball Falls 7-3 Tuesday Night At Notre Dame
April 25, 2007 | Baseball
NOTRE DAME, Ind. - The Ball State baseball team allowed Notre Dame to score in just two innings Tuesday night, but the Fighting Irish did enough in those innings to hand the Cardinals a 7-3 loss.
Notre Dame (22-18) did all the scoring it needed with five runs in the third inning and added two more in the fifth. Ball State (15-25) matched the Irish in hits with eight, but the Cardinals could not come up with the big hits.
Matt Gard led the Cardinals at the plate with three hits and a walk to reach base in all four of his plate appearances.
Ball State returns to action Friday at 3 p.m. with the first game of a three-game series against Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, Mich.
In Tuesday's contest, Notre Dame broke open a scoreless tie with five runs in the third inning. The Irish recorded just two hits in the inning but had the assistance of three walks and a hit batter as they batted around in the inning. Notre Dame scored the first two runs of the game on a bases-loaded double from Ross Brezovsky. The Irish then added three more runs on a Mike Dury home run to right field.
Ball State managed a run without a hit in the top of the fifth inning. After the Cardinals loaded the bases on two walks and a hit batter, Eric Earnhart drew another walk to bring home the run. Ball State, though, left the bases loaded after Tony Langford came out of the Notre Dame bullpen to strike out the next two batters and end the threat.
The Irish then extended their lead to 7-1 with two runs in the fifth inning.
The Cardinals used a two-out rally to close the gap in the top of the eighth inning. Joe Mack got things started with a single. Ball State then loaded the bases with an Alex Schmid walk and a Jeremy Hazelbaker infield single. Matt Gard followed with his third hit of the day to score two runs and cut the Notre Dame lead to 7-3, the game's final deficit.
Ball State used seven pitchers in the game and aided Notre Dame with eight walks and four hit batters. Josh Vollmer, Brad Piatt, Aaron Hammons and Luke Behning pitched one scoreless inning each in relief.
Tony Langford earned the win for Notre Dame after throwing 2.2 scoreless innings out of the bullpen. Dury led the Irish at the plate with two hits and three RBI. Six other Notre Dame players had one hit each.
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