MAC struggles continue for baseball team

by Anthony Castrovince
Staff Writer

Some things in life are worth waiting for. Others are just ridiculously long baseball games.

The Ohio and Bowling Green baseball teams sat through a three-and-a half-hour rain delay yesterday, then treated the 64 die-hard fans in attendance at Bob Wren Stadium to a three-hour game.

Apparently trying to relive the Bobcats' 23-21 football victory against the Falcons, the two teams battled through a revolving door of pitchers and bitterly cold temperatures, and Bowling Green escaped with a 19-14 victory in eight innings. A combined 10 pitchers gave up a combined six home runs in the shootout.

"The wind was blowing out," Ohio coach Joe Carbone said. "Fly balls became home runs."

Chronicling each run scored in the game would require more text than War and Peace. After the Falcons (14-7 overall, 5-2 Mid-American Conference) rocked Ohio starter Marc Cornell for five runs in the top of the first, Ohio (9-14, 2-6) took a 6-5 lead with three runs in each of the team's first two trips to the plate.

Bowling Green upped the ante with a nine-run third inning in which Ohio employed the efforts of four pitchers Third baseman Scott Dukate and first baseman Kelly Hunt each cranked out home runs in the inning.

Down 14-6, Ohio scored four runs over the course of the next two innings, but then allowed two more in the fifth. Ohio catcher Jeremy Johnson continued the saga with a pinch-hit, two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh to make the score 16-12 in Bowling Green's favor.

A throwing error by Ohio third baseman Adam Fox allowed two runs in the eighth, and Bowling Green added another with shortstop Nick Elrod's RBI single. Ohio scored twice on wild pitches in the bottom of the inning to end the fiasco in which the box score read like a page out of the Wall Street Journal.

Ohio pitcher/outfielder Andrew See, who pitched 4 2/3 innings in the game and knocked in seven runs, said the Falcons had their big bats with them.

"They came out swinging," he said. "They did a good job hitting the ball all day - especially with runners in scoring position."

It was a tough weekend for the Bobcats to endure. The four-game series opened Friday when Ohio squandered a 4-2 lead by allowing four runs in the last three innings to lose the game 6-4.

In Saturday's seven-inning doubleheader opener, Ohio fell behind 7-1 and rallied too late in a 7-6 loss. Fox made the game interesting with a three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh, but the comeback died there.

"It was just too little too late," Fox said.

The story was different in the nightcap. Starting pitcher Denny McGee led the Bobcats to a 9-1 victory with a complete game four-hitter.

"(McGee) was awesome," Fox said. "When he's on, he's untouchable."

It was the second consecutive 1-3 MAC weekend for Ohio.

"We've dug a hole for ourselves," Carbone said. "We'll see what we're made of."

The team wraps up its 17-game homestand at 2 p.m. Tuesday against Ohio Wesleyan.