Central Michigan baseball wins MAC tournament, 11-7 over Ball State, for NCAA bid
Central Michigan powered its way to the Mid-American Conference baseball championship with an 11-7 win over Ball State on Sunday in Muncie, Indiana.
The Chippewas (42-17) won the MAC for the third straight season (2019, 2021; there was no champion crowned in 2020) and earned its 16th all-time bid to the NCAA tournament. The field will be announced Monday afternoon.
Mario Camilletti, Garrett Navarra and Robby Morgan each hit home runs for CMU, which collected 17 hits.
Camilletti led off the eighth with a single, and with one out Ball State lifted reliever Sam Klein in favor of Tyler Schweitzer. But that didn’t bother Jakob Marsee, who hit an RBI double down the right-field line to take the lead. Danny Wuestenfeld then followed with a double to right-center, scoring Marsee.
In the ninth, with a runner on first and one out, Camilletti took reliever Ty Johnson deep with a two-run shot off the scoreboard in left-center to give CMU a four-run lead.
Jordan Patty got the final three outs on the mound for CMU.
Central Michigan trailed, 6-2, in the sixth when Navarra led off with a single and Morgan followed with a two-run homer to left off starter Trennor O’Donnell to cut the lead in half.
The Chippewas then took the lead in the seventh off Klein. Marsee and Wuestenfeld hit consecutive singles, setting the table for Navarra, whose three-run homer to left-center gave CMU a 7-6 lead.
The Cardinals tied the game in the seventh on Ryan Peltier’s two-out RBI single off Ryan Palmblad. But Adam Mrakitsch entered the game to get the final out of the inning.
CMU opened the scoring in the first after two-out singled by Marsee and Wuestenfeld, the second of which was followed by an error to score Marsee.
But Ball State answered with five in the bottom of the first, which began with an Amir Wright triple. He scored on Zach Cole’s single. After a walk and a fly out, Nick Powell singled to left, scoring Cole and chasing Jake Jones from the mound.
Andrew Taylor took the mound for CMU, but he was greeted by Adam Tellier with an RBI ground-rule double and a Peltier RBI single. Then, Taylor struck out CJ Horn, but on the play, Peltier stole second and Tellier scored on the errant throw by the catcher, making it 5-1 Ball State.
Contact Kirkland Crawford: kcrawford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @HiKirkHere.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Central Michigan baseball wins MAC tournament, 11-7 over Ball State
