HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – Northern Kentucky scored four times, including a pair on throwing errors, in the seventh inning to hand the Morehead State baseball team an 8-3 defeat at Bill Akers Complex Tuesday.
NKU, which has won three straight against MSU, improved to 6-13. Morehead State, which has now lost seven of its last nine games, saw its 2015 marked evened at 11-11.
MSU trailed 3-2 during the middle innings before senior leftfielder Nick Newell singled to drive in fellow senior outfielder Brandon Rawe in the seventh. The Norse, however, got a two-run homer from first baseman Trey Ganns and two more via Eagle throwing errors to go up 7-3 in the bottom of the frame. An additional throwing error let the final run come across in the ninth.
“It’s another disappointing result,” Head Coach Mike McGuire said. “They obviously earned a couple of runs late, but we basically gave them three runs.”
The Eagles fell behind 3-0 before Newell and senior shortstop Robby Spencer collected RBI hits in the third.
“It seems like the last four or five games, we have been behind the eight-ball right away,” McGuire added. “We went to the bullpen early today, and I thought our offense had its chances again, but we aren’t getting the big innings like we are capable of.”
The hosts recorded 13 hits off six Morehead State pitchers. Ganns, Cole Bauml, Caleb Lonkard and former MSU outfielder Taylor Sears notched two hits each. Bauml led off the first with his nation-leading 18th double.
NKU reliever Alex Bolia picked up the win, allowing the tying run to score but benefitting from his team’s rally, to improve to 2-0. Junior Jared Holloman was slapped with the loss to fall to 0-1. He served up the go-ahead home run.
Newell recorded his team-best ninth multi-hit game, going 3-for-4. Rawe and sophomore centerfielder Ryan Kent got two hits apiece. Senior catcher Chris Robinson extended his reached-base streak to 29 games, but senior first baseman Kane Sweeney went 0-for-5 to halt his reached-base string at 28 contests.
Morehead State is scheduled to travel to Lexington on Wednesday for a 4 p.m. ET makeup game at Kentucky. Audio play-by-play will be available on MSUEagles.com.
“At this point, we can’t worry about who are playing, we have to worry about us,” McGuire said. “We have a chance tomorrow to play better than we did today, and that’s what we need to focus on.”
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