2008 Woodie Awards
BASEBALL: Cardinals lose first MAC games
BSU wins Sunday to avoid series sweep by Bowling Green
Levin Black
|
In its first two series of the Mid-American Conference, Ball State played Sunday's game with a chance to get a sweep, but this weekend the Cardinals were on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Having lost 18-12, 18-16 on Friday and Saturday, respectively, the Cardinals (19-11, 7-2 MAC) took the field Sunday trying to avoid being swept at home by Bowling Green State University. Ball State was successful in its sweep defense as it won 9-7 Sunday.
Freshman Kolbrin Vitek started for the Cardinals on the mound and got the victory. The Cardinals have yet to lose a game in which Vitek was the starting pitcher, as they have won eight-straight games with Vitek on the mound.
On Sunday he went 6 1/3 innings, allowing one earned run and striking out seven batters. He improved to 5-0 on the year with the win.
Ball State coach Greg Beals said Vitek was the difference between Friday and Saturday's loses to Sunday's win.
"I think the biggest difference was the way we pitched," he said. "We got great starting pitching [Sunday]. Kolbrin Vitek was able to use all four of his pitches and throw them for strikes. That makes it a lot tougher on the opposing offense."
With a hard wind blowing out on Friday and Saturday, the Falcons scored 36 combined runs, something that was Vitek said was on his mind prior to Sunday's game.
"I definitely was thinking about that because watching them if you leave the ball up [in the strike zone] to them, they are definitely going to drive it, but I was also taking the wind into factor," he said. "The [first] two days it has been blowing out and [Sunday] it was blowing in so I knew I had that on my side today."
Be the first to comment on this story