The last weekend of February, or first weekend of March, held a mixed bag for MTSU athletics. Both men’s and women’s basketball picked up critical late season victories, while baseball and men’s tennis struggled to get things going.
Without further delay, here’s everything that happened across Blue Raider sports over the weekend.
Men’s hoops pushes past UTEP with late surge
Middle Tennessee men’s basketball (20-9, 11-5 CUSA) closed out its final road trip of the regular season with two wins and currently holds a second-place tie in the conference with two games to go.
In the latter of those two wins, the Blue Raiders dug out a hole against UTEP (17-12, 7-9 CUSA) in the final minutes of play to keep a first-place finish within reach. The Miners led by 10 with just over six minutes to go, before a late Blue Raider run turned the tides.
MTSU hit five three-pointers and held UTEP scoreless for two plus minutes, tying the game at 66 with one minute left. The teams traded buckets until UTEP led 75-74. MTSU guard Jlynn Counter found Kamari Lands open at the top of the key, who drove for the layup and the foul to win 76-75.
Center Essam Mostafa led the Blue Raiders with 16 points and 16 rebounds along with Camryn Weston, Counter and Lands finishing with double digit points.
Next up for the Blue Raiders is a home test with co-second place Liberty (23-6, 11-5 CUSA) and last place FIU (9-20, 3-13 CUSA) to wrap up the regular season. Jacob Burgess
Women’s hoops throttles UTEP on senior day
Middle Tennessee women’s basketball (23-6, 15-1 CUSA) concluded its home slate on Saturday with a 57-35 victory over UTEP (10-17, 3-13 CUSA).
Notably from Saturday’s victory, senior center Anastasiia Boldyreva went down in the early part of the first quarter after hitting her head on the floor. She returned by the end of the first quarter and finished the game with eight blocks, however.
Junior Ta’Mia Scott led the way with 25 points on Saturday. Senior Jalynn Gregory followed that up with 16 points of her own including four three-pointers.
The Lady Raiders have two games remaining with a road matchup against Liberty (21-6, 14-2 CUSA) on March 6 having No. 1 seed implications for the conference tournament. Jacob Burgess
Baseball drops two of three in round robin
Middle Tennessee baseball (6-5) hosted a round robin weekend bringing in UT Martin (4-6), St. Bonaventure (7-3) and Old Dominion (3-7) to Murfreesboro to take on the Blue Raiders.
MTSU started out the round robin Friday afternoon, walking-off UT Martin 13-12 in a ten-inning slugfest, capped off by a Brett Vondohlen solo home run.
The Skyhawks offense found production in the top of the first, with Brody Capps hitting a two-run homer to left. Middle Tennessee responded immediately with a run of their own in the first, as Matt Wolfe scored after a two-out error that kept the inning alive.
UT Martin extended its early lead in the second to 6-1 after a home run from Arderrius Townsend, an RBI double from Jalen Fithian and two RBIs on a single from Jonah Katsaboulas.
After falling down 6-1, the Blue Raider bats came to life. Eston Snider scored two on a single to left center and Wolfe picked up an RBI on a sac fly in the second. Nathan Brewer and Brett Rogers both hit solo home runs in the third inning to tie things at six.
Pitching took over for both sides, as Trace Phillips settled in to give the Blue Raiders five innings of work, while reliever Jeb Bartle gave UTM length out of the bullpen going 4.1 innings.
In the top of the seventh, the Skyhawks hung five runs against reliever Will Jenkins, including a grand slam from Garner Anderson. The grand slam gave UTM it’s second five-run lead of the day, up 11-6 after the top of the inning.
MTSU got one back in the bottom half of the seventh, with an RBI single from Hayden Miller to bring the score to 11-7.
Vondohlen gave life to the Blue Raiders in the eighth inning, belting a grand slam to left, tying things at 11. UTM’s Kaleb Baskin allowed the grand slam after giving up a single and walking two.
Middle Tennessee grabbed the lead two batters later, as DH Kenny McKinley hit his first collegiate home run into the trees beyond the right field wall to push things to 12-11.
MTSU head coach Jerry Meyers turned to Bryant Beranek to close things down in the ninth, but UTM pushed a run across as Anderson found his fifth RBI of the day on a single to send the game to extra innings.
In the bottom of the tenth, Vondohlen hit a solo home run to center, just right of the batters’ eye to give the Blue Raiders their first walk off victory of the season.
On Saturday, MTSU lost in seven innings to the St. Bonaventure Bonnies 13-3 after a run rule took effect.
Chandler Alderman started on the mound for the Blue Raiders, lasting only three innings. The Bonnies threw up seven runs on the scoreboard against him, all of which unearned.
Jonny Stevens, Jack Fortner, Garrett Sims and Ethan Imbimbo combined to throw four innings out of the bullpen while giving up six runs.
Third baseman Harrison Kaufman shined for St. Bonaventure, picking up a solo home run and three RBIs. Chris Hoalcraft added three more RBIs for the Bonnies, going four for five on the day.
McKinley was the shining spot on offense for Middle Tennessee, hitting a double and picking up two RBIs in three at-bats.
Sunday afternoon, the Blue Raiders matched up with former Conference USA foe Old Dominion, losing 5-3.
MTSU’s bats caught fire early, scoring two runs in the first inning courtesy of a Vondohlen solo home run and a Brewer single.
Old Dominion’s Blake Morgan soon settled in on the mound and extinguished MTSU’s offense. Morgan went 7.2 innings, giving up seven hits, three runs (two earned) while picking up seven strikeouts for the Monarchs.
Drew Horn made his third start for the Blue Raiders, giving up four runs (three earned) across 4.1 IP. Horn continued to miss bats in this outing, striking out eight while pushing his season total to 25.
Ollie Akens set his career high in strikeouts out of the bullpen against Old Dominion, striking out seven across 3.2 innings for MTSU.
Zach Leite led ODU on offense, going 3-4 with two RBI and a double. Left fielder Luke Waters added an RBI single for the Monarchs, while the other two runs scored on throwing errors after steals from MTSU catcher Jaxon Junnila.
The Blue Raiders out-of-conference slate continues this week, as they travel to take on Austin Peay (8-4) on Tuesday, and hosts Oakland (2-10) for a three-game series in Murfreesboro over the weekend. Willie Phaler
Softball sweeps in MTSU Invitational
MTSU softball (8-11) picked up four wins on the weekend during its first home stretch of the season.
The four consecutive victories signaled the best home start in head coach Jeff Breeden’s thirteen years of coaching. During the home tournament, Breeden hit a career milestone, becoming the winningest coach in program history after their first victory of the weekend. After the weekend, Breeden has 280 victories before Conference USA play begins next weekend.
“It feels good,” Breeden said. “I mean, as far as, from an individual standpoint, it’s a career goal.”
MTSU scored a total of 16 runs over the weekend en route to building its longest winning streak of the season.
“My takeaway from this weekend is we had a bunch of people that contributed,” Breeden said. “Everybody that subbed into the game contributed well and people who were in the dugout brought great energy.”
The Blue Raiders rallied back in the first game after a 3-0 start from Ball State. Ava Tepe made it a one run game in the bottom of the second inning with a RBI home run over the center field walk. Ansely Blevins singled to center field to plate Ava Brooks in the third inning and tied the game 3-3. Anyce Harvey doubled to right center field to score Lexi Medlock and walk off the first game of the MTSU Invitational in a 4-3 victory.
Next, MTSU hosted the Illinois State University Cardinals and managed another walk off in the seventh inning. Illinois chalked a run on the scoreboard in the second inning after an RBI single to right field. Both teams were held scoreless until the bottom of the seventh when Medlock and Blevins answered back with two home runs over the right field fence to beat the Illinois State Cardinals 2-1.
After a night’s rest, the Blue Raiders hit the dirt against Illinois State once again. MTSU’s hot bats helped the Blue Raiders secure a 6-3 victory. Tepe had a RBI single to tie the game in the fifth inning 1-1. Then Jana Want and Medlock doubled off of the wall to put the Blue Raiders up 5-1.
Illinois State answered back with two runs in the top of the sixth, but Belvins shut them down with a homerun over the left field fence in the bottom of the sixth.
The Blue Raiders carried that win into the next game where they had five hits for four runs against Ball State. MTSU closed out the tournament with a 4-3 victory over the Ball State Cardinals. Want had a single RBI in the third to tie the game 1-1, then during the fifth inning, MTSU added another three runs to the board. Edgmon crossed the plate on an error, then with bases loaded, Brooks and Blevins walked to bring the score to 4-1 at the end of the fifth.
Ball State put two more runs on the board, but the Blue Raiders held them and ended the game in the middle of the seventh.
Want led the team with RBIs this weekend with four, where Blevins led in hits with five.
“You have to shake out some nerves the first couple weekends,” Blevins said. “Mentally I have just been focusing on what I can do outside of practice time to get better and get into a better mental state when I am in the box. Being at home was definitely helpful,and being around all of our fans and my teammates. I am really just trying to focus on the little things.”
To carry the weekend success into conference play, the team has to have good pitching and keep the bats going, Breeden said.
“You have to have good pitching, and we’ve had it all weekend long,” Breden said. “You have to have timely hitting and play fundamentally sound defense and we did all of those. We are really looking forward to bringing FAU into our place. They are ranked so our fans will get to see a ranked opponent.”
MTSU hosts Florida Atlantic University on Monday, March 3 at 6 p.m. Then the Blue Raiders travel to University of Alabama Birmingham for a final game March 4, before conference play begins on Friday, March 7 against Florida International University. Erin Douglas
Men’s tennis winless Ivy League road trip
Coming off of a week adding three wins to its record, MTSU men’s tennis (9-8) headed northeast to face off against Ivy League competition.
The Blue Raiders took on No. 20 Princeton on Friday, falling 4-0.
In doubles play, Rostislav Halfinger and Shu Matsuoka started the match off with a 6-4 victory. However, Karim Al-Amin and Ondrej Horak lost 7-5. The doubles went to the Tigers after Kacper Szymkowiak and Jakub Kroslak lost a tough match in a tiebreaker 10-8.
In singles, the Blue Raiders didn’t go down easily, forcing the Tigers into a third set on multiple courts, but the home team was too much for MTSU to handle as Al-Amin, Kroslak, and Horak all lost. With the 4-0 victory for Princeton, MTSU fell to 9-7 on the season.
On Sunday, MTSU looked for redemption against No. 11 Harvard, but dropped the match 4-2.
The Blue Raiders started off on the right track with Horak and Al-Amin defeating Benjamin Privara and Masato Perera, 6-2. MTSU’s pairings on courts two and three couldn’t take advantage of the momentum however, with both remaining teams dropping their games 6-4.
In singles play, Kroslak and Matsuoka emerged as victors in 6-3, 1-6, 6-0 and 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 wins over Harvard’s Rohan Murali and Perera respectively.
Up next for the Blue Raiders is a west coast trip to face No. 23 Pepperdine on Tuesday, March 11. Alex Wittke
Women’s tennis rests up before conference play
Before serving up the second half of the season, MTSU women’s tennis (8-3) took a bye week from play.
Currently ranked No. 71, the Blue Raiders ride a six-game win streak into the back end of the regular season.
Middle Tennessee’s next match is set for Saturday, March 8 against Conference USA foe Florida International University (4-2) in Murfreesboro. Brett Walker
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