The Eastern Michigan Eagles (1-7) baseball team lost their seventh straight game, 12-7, versus North Dakota State on Friday, Feb. 28 at North Charlotte Park in Port Charlotte, Fla. Eastern Michigan’s seven runs is the second most they’ve scored in a game this year but it wasn’t enough to take down the Bison. Nate Jones led the Eagles with two runs batted in.
EMU started Luke McGuire, who had the only victory for the Eagles, but he struggled in just four innings of work. McGuire gave up two runs in the first inning, three runs in the second inning, and two more runs in the third inning. It was a poor start for the EMU pitching staff but the offense did try to make a comeback.
In the bottom of the second inning, the Eagles got on the board as Nate Jones tripled, which allowed Christian Bault to come around and score. The Eagles would add two more runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. Bault hit a sacrifice fly to score Nick Jones and then Eli Gora connected on a single to score Daniel Warkentin.
Trevor House came in to replace McGuire after four innings. House pitched 1.2 innings and allowed five runs, four hits, two walks and two hit batters. After House’s appearance, the Eagles found themselves trailing 12-3 at the end of the sixth inning and the game was all but over. House also struck out three batters.
Despite the game being out of reach, the Eagles offense continued to do damage. Stephen Karis, who came in to replace Nick Jones, hit a sacrifice fly to score Lewis Beals. Later in the eighth inning, Mike Monahan singled up the middle to bring around Devin Hager. Gora picked up his second RBI as he allowed Warkentin to score from third base.
The final run of the game came via Nate Jones. Jones singled up the middle, scoring Monahan and advancing Gora to second base. Jones finished the game with two hits, two runs batted in and one strikeout in four plate appearances. Gora also had two hits and two RBI in four at-bats.
Max Loven, who is 2-0 now, earned the victory for North Dakota State. McGuire falls to 1-2 with the loss. The other two EMU pitchers that saw the mound were Tyler Helgeson and John Holt. Helgeson pitched 1.2 innings and gave up ust one hit and one walk. Holt threw 14 pitches and struck out one batter while giving up one hit.
The Eagles will play two games tomorrow as they face Villanova and Northeastern on Saturday, Feb. 29. After that, Eastern Michigan will face Northeastern on Sunday, March 1. All three games will also be in Port Charlotte. Eastern Michigan’s first home game will be on Tuesday, March 17 versus Findlay at Oestrike Stadium.
