Kent State University
Central Michigan University (7 Innings)
Kent State Welcomes CMU for MAC Opening Weekend
3/10/2022 1:33:00 PM | Baseball
KENT, OHIO- The Golden Flashes open up Schoonover Stadium this weekend, welcoming in the defending conference champion Central Michigan Chippewas.
The weekend will start with a Friday doubleheader starting at noon. The first game will be seven innings and the second game will be a standard nine-inning affair. The remaining games of the series are tentatively schedule for the weekend, but with snow in Saturday's forecast, both teams will have to be flexible.
The Flashes are coming off a weekend sweep of Austin Peay, winning Sunday's finale 16-9. The Flashes pounded out 22 hits in the victory and improved to 4-5 on the season. Collin Mathews led the offensive charge, hitting .700 on the weekend with two homers and eight driven in, the center fielder earned conference player of the week honors for his efforts.
The pitching was led by Richie Dell who tossed six innings of one-run ball against the Governors, while striking out seven. The bullpen was also strong last weekend with Ben Cruickshank (3.1 innings), Evan Wolf (two innings) throwing shutout relief and Aidan Longwell and Grant Vera each earning saves.
Central Michigan is 4-7 on the year and knocked off North Carolina A & T on Tuesday in their last time out. They were picked to finished atop the MAC regular season in the pre-season poll and were ranked 16th in the Collegiate Baseball pre-season poll.
Right-hander Andrew Taylor leads a strong pitching staff. He was named to the Golden Spikes Award watchlist and is 1-1 with a 3.86 ERA so far this season. He went six innings and allowed three runs against Wake Forest in his last outing. Infielder Mario Camilletti and outfielder Jakob Marsee have paced the offense so far this season. Marsee is hitting .395 this year with 10 driven in while Camilletti is hitting .351 and leads the squad with 12 runs scored.
This will be the Chips first trip to Schoonover since 2018 when Kent State took two-of-three in the series. Central won three of four from the Flashes last season in Mount Pleasant.
All games this weekend will be streamed via Box Cast and will be free of charge to viewers. Live stats will also be provided, links are available on the baseball schedule page.
The Flashes will hit the road for the next two weekends. First up is a trip to Athens to take on the Ohio Bobcats for a four-game series starting on Friday.
