COOKEVILLE, Tennessee — Middle Tennessee baseball (22-19, 8-10 CUSA) fell 12-6 in the second leg of a home-and-home in-state series against Tennessee Tech University (14-27, 3-12 OVC) at Bush Stadium at the Averitt Express Baseball Complex.
In the top of the seventh with the score tied 5-5, MTSU first baseman Dean O’Neill laced a single into center field, driving in Owen Nowak from third base. The run gave Middle Tennessee a 6-5 lead after falling down 2-0 in the first inning. Despite the momentum swinging in favor of the Blue Raiders, a seven-run frame by TTU flipped the script.
“We played 40 games at this point, and we can’t let winning over the weekend affect us going into today, and not be ready,” Meyers said. “… a good competitive ball game through six innings. We got into one of those snowball innings, and the majority of that was with two outs.”
If the seventh inning was a snowball, the Golden Eagles unleashed an avalanche. Tennessee Tech rattled off seven straight runs, highlighted by a Jorsixt Jimenez home run that overwhelmed the Blue Raiders’ bullpen. TTU stitched together hit after hit against MTSU pitcher Mason Dobbs with a single, a double and a triple, resulting in two runs off the rightie arm.
After the score extended the Golden Eagles’ lead to 7-5, Meyers turned to Abel Albarran, who proceeded to allow three runs. After Albarran’s ⅓ of an inning, a combination of Walker Shaw and Cole Cates spanned the final 1 ⅔ innings, allowing two runs, pushing the final score to 12-6.
“Credit to them [Tennessee Tech], they swung the bats well,” Meyers said. “We were in too many leverage counts and left too many pitches up in the zone. Against a good hitting team, that’s going to hurt you.”
With the struggles on the mound, the Blue Raiders made the most of hits off the Tennessee Tech pitching staff, with three of the seven hits being home runs. In the top of the third inning, MTSU third baseman Brett Vondohlen and outfielder Owen Nowak tallied back-to-back long balls to put Middle Tennessee ahead 3-2.
The third home run of the day fell on the bat of second baseman Cooper Clapp in the top of the sixth. However, the power hitting fell quiet in the final three innings after the offensive surge from TTU. With the loss to the Golden Eagles, the Blue Raiders fall to a 2-13 record away from home this season.
The struggles on the road are mainly recurring in late-game situations, with a majority of the losses falling on breakdowns in the bullpen. Several times this season, offenses have gotten hot against MTSU’s arms, forcing the offense to keep up.
With the Conference USA tournament under a month away, Middle Tennessee is struggling to play complete games down the stretch. Despite a series sweep against the University of Delaware over the weekend, the Blue Raiders couldn’t replicate an 11-1 run-rule victory earlier in the season over Tennessee Tech.
Following the rivalry loss, the Blue Raiders travel to Huntsville, Texas, in a CUSA matchup with Sam Houston State University (18-23, 7-11 CUSA) in a weekend series at Don Sanders Stadium on April 24-26, with first pitch on Friday scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CDT.
“It’s a big weekend for us [against Sam Houston],” Vondohlen said. “So, you look at the teams that are below us in the conference. They all four have the same record, so I think we can just use that as our motivation. It’ll do a lot for us to come out with two or three wins this weekend.”
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