This weekend, we traveled to Oxford, Ohio to take on the MAC East leading Miami Red Hawks. We are currently in second place with a 6-6 record in the MAC. This weekend was going to be real big for us because if we could win the series or even sweep Miami it would put us in a great position to over take first place.

The stands were packed for Friday night’s highly anticipated game. There were a lot of scouts at the game to see junior ace John Ely (Miami), and he did not disappoint as he didn’t allow a hit until the sixth inning when freshman Anthony Gallas hit a line drive into right-center. Ely threw eight shutout innings while striking out nine. We lost the game 6-0. We were frustrated all night at the plate, and we knew that in order for us to win this series, we had to swing the bat a lot better than what we did.

In Saturday’s game we had a five-run, two-out rally in the fifth inning to tie the series. Kyle Smith tossed four scoreless innings, and Dominique Rogers earned the victory after going three scoreless innings. Reid Lamport took the mound in the eighth and worked out of two jams to end the game. All of our starters had at least one hit while Davis, Gallas, Patton and Tremblay each had a pair of hits. We put up nine runs and 12 hits on the hard-throwing Connor Graham.

We hit three home runs and scored six runs in the last five innings to give us a 6-5 victory over the first place Red Hawks on Sunday.

This was a huge lift for us, not only did we win the last two games of the series but we also put ourselves in position to make a run at the first-place spot in the MAC East. This is the second weekend in the row that we have won a series.

Hopefully this will continue when we host the Bobcats of Ohio University next weekend.

Brad Winter

(photo courtesy of Kent State Media Relations Office)