Baseball Rolls Past Toledo in Series Opener

Friday, May 12

Toledo, Ohio

1 p.m.

Central Michigan University

32-16, 18-7

Toledo

23-26, 11-14

Central Michigan

TOLEDO

Junior Jacob Donahue hit his first career homer on Friday in CMU's 12-0 victory at Toledo.

Photo by: Jack Reeber '23,M'25 - @jackreeber.raw

5/12/2023 4:40:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score

By: Andy Sneddon

TOLEDO, Ohio – Jacob Donahue hit his first career home run and Adam Mrakitsch and two relievers combined for the shutout on Friday as the Central Michigan baseball team rolled to a 12-0 win over Toledo in the opener of a three-game Mid-American Conference series at the Rockets' Scott Park.

The Chippewas improved to 23-16, 18-7 MAC. They entered Friday's game tied for second place with Ball State, two games behind Kent State. Kent State was scheduled to play Eastern Michigan and Ball State was slated to play Miami (Ohio) later on Friday.

The Chippewas and Rockets are slated to play the second game of the series on Saturday (1 p.m.) and the finale on Sunday (1 p.m.). CMU closes the regular season the following weekend with a three-game series at Western Michigan.

CMU, which won for the 19^th time in its last 23 games, rebounded from a 13-5 nonconference loss on Wednesday at Ohio State.

"We talked a lot about bouncing back quickly," CMU coach Jordan Bischel said. "We didn't play our best game on Wednesday in Columbus. We came right back out and played better baseball today, which was good to see.

"As good as it was to put a bunch of runs on the board, that's a pretty powerful Toledo offense and for us to put nine zeros on the board was probably the story of the game."

Mrakitsch (8-3) allowed five hits over six innings while striking out seven against a Toledo team that entered the game fourth in the league in hitting and with a MAC-best 86 home runs.

Michael Conte worked a perfect seventh and then Ben Vitas went the final two frames, allowing two hits while striking out four.

It was the Chippewas' third shutout of the season. Mrakitsch, a sophomore left-hander, lowered his earned run average to 3.02.

"Adam, he really competed well," Bischel said. "He wants to be in big spots right now. He embraces challenges. Ben and Mike were really sharp out of the pen. I know the score wasn't all that close, but they really did a nice job."

The Chippewas went down in order in the first two innings against Toledo starter Jack Walker, and then began to crack the code in the third when they used two walks and an infield hit to load the bases and Justin Simpson hit a sacrifice fly to put CMU in front, 1-0.

The Chippewas got two more in the fourth when, with two out and none on, Christian Mitchelle and Nick Dardas hit back-to-back singles and Jake Brill walked to load the bases. Marquis Jackson and Simpson drew consecutive walks to up the lead to 3-0.

"Their pitcher threw well early in the game," Bischel said. "He did a nice job. He had good life on the ball and we weren't squaring much up and I thought it was going to be a quiet inning. Then two outs, (Mitchelle and Dardas) provide a spark and we were able to capitalize on it."

The Chippewas drew 11 walks on the game, six of which were issued by Walker, who left after 3 2/3 innings.

Donahue hit a three-run homer in the sixth to up the lead to 6-0 and then the Chippewas scored six runs on six hits in the seventh, highlighted by Garrett Navarra's two-run triple and Danny Wuestenfeld's two-run single.