Coach gets 200th win in series loss

By: Jerime Crane

YPSILANTI, Mich., -- The coach of the Eastern Michigan University's baseball team got his 200th win versus the Kent State Golden Flashes in a triple header over the weekend.

While the Eagles only won one of the three games against Kent State, a milestone was reached for head coach Jay Alexander. He reached the 200 win mark in game two of the triple header on Saturday.

Alexander said, "It feels good and honestly I never thought about it until they announced it after the game." He added that anytime you get a win it feels good.

"It's a coaching milestone which just means I am getting old."

He said his expectations for the season are the same they are for every season. He expects to win the Mid-Atlantic Conference and the MAC tournament.

While coach Alexander reached a milestone they were beat in the best-of-three series. The first game of the triple header was a blow-out to the tune of 16-1. Alexander said when the Eagles made bad pitches they got hits and even when they made good pitches they still got hits.

"They simply got all the breaks." It's baseball, sometimes it just happens, he added.

Corey Chaffins was the starting pitcher in that game against Kent St. and said that nothing was going their way.

Chaffins said he really enjoys Alexanders coaching style. He said Alexander gives the players more freedom for players to play the way they like. He lets his players play more to their own style instead of just dictating to them the way things need to be done.

"He is fun to play for." Chaffins said.

Chaffins said that they have some good competition this year in their conference. He said that the best team in the conference is Ball State but there are other really good teams to look out for such as Toledo and Central Michigan University, who is number one in the MAC standings this season.

The Eagles were outplayed by the Golden Flashes all weekend. The only win they earned was a close 8-6 victory in game two. The Eagles offense and defense was stagnant for most of the series. They only scored a combined total of nine runs in the three games. The Golden Flashes scored 27 runs.

Right fielder Bo Kinder led the Eagles with 5 hits during the series. Second baseman Zack Leonard and infielder Brent Ohrman led the Eagles in the series with two runs batted in each.

Infielder Anthony Gallas contributed almost the same amount of offense the Eagles did for the entire series. He led his team in runs batted in and hits with seven of each.

Kent State got the better of EMU the last two years by winning five out of the last six games against the Eastern, but don't look for the Eagles to give up yet, as the Mid-American Conference tournament is coming up May 26. The Eagles beat the Golden Flashes 12-4 for the MAC tournament championship in 2008.

Coach Alexander has coached a couple of players who are trying to make their way to the big leagues. Jimmy Gulliver and Kyle Rhoad are two players looking to play professional baseball that played for Alexander's Eagles. Jimmy Gulliver was drafted by the Detroit Tigers last year and Kyle Rhoad was drafted last year, as well, by the Texas Rangers. They both still play in the minor leagues and they are working hard to make it in Major League Baseball.

Gulliver said that the biggest thing when trying to get to the major leagues is switching to wood bats and playing everyday.

Eagles loses tie-breaker game in series finale

YPSILANTI, Mich., -- Eastern Michigan University's baseball team struggled in the final of three games against Kent State Sunday. The offensive struggles resulted in a 5-0 loss that cost them the best-of-three series. The loss sends the Eagle's record to 14-8 overall and 5-4 in the Mid-American Conference.



Sophomore starting pitcher Colin Taylor took the loss for EMU by giving up four runs in six and one-thirds innings, and striking out two while walking six batters. The loss brings his season record to 2-4. Eastern's offense was stagnent with senior Todd Graves leading the way going 1-2 and two walks. The Eagles were only in scoring posistion twice the entire game. One of those times was in the sixth inning but senior Andrew Marshall batted in to a double play to keep the Eagles at zero. The other scoring opportunity came in the bottom of the eighth when Ken Battiston doubled to center field but Ben Magsig couldn't bring him home as he fouled out to end the inning. The Golden Flashes defense was too much for the Eagles as they drop five of their last six games against Kent State. This loss breaks the Eagles seven-game-winning streak in the MAC.

The Golden Flashes wasted no time by putting up a run in the first inning of the game and it was no looking back for them after that. Kyle Hallock of Kent State got the win by allowing zero runs and only giving up three hits with six strikeouts. The Golden Flashes move to 18-16 overall and 6-3 in the MAC. Their offense was lead by David Lyon who had to runs batted in.

Photo provided by EMUeagles.com

Eagles Tie Series in Game 2

YPSILANTI, Mich., -- Head coach of the Eastern Michigan University baseball team got his 200th win in the second game of the triple header against the Kent State Golden Flashes on Saturday.

Jay Alexander was lifted to this milestone as his team snapped a four game losing streak. Sophomore Brent Ohrman (Adrian Mich. -- Adrian) hit his first home run of the year. The two run blast capped a four run fifth inning. Sophomore righ-hand pitcher Kendall Lewis (Huntsville, Ohio -- Indian Lake) got the win for the Eagles. He pitched five innings giving up five runs on 11 hits and striking out two batters. The final score was 8-6. Sunday's Game will be a tie breaker between the two teams. Last season the the Eagles lost all three games against Kent State.

Tweeting Today's Game

YPSILANTI, Mich., -- Today at 3 p.m. I will be at Oestrike Stadium for the Eastern Michigan University's series opener baseball game versus the Kent State Golden Flashes. I will be doing live updates via Twitter that should be posting in the sidebar of this page. Anyone wants to follow along is welcome to do so by clicking on the follow me bird on the right side of the page.

Click here to see my the game on my Twitter account. On the right side of the page I provided a few pictures from the series opener. The tweets in the sidebar below the pictures are tweets of eventful things that went on at the game. It was difficult to watch some of the things that were unfolding because they weren't going in Eastern's direction. When telling the score, I always put the EMU score as the first number -- 1-16 Final score of this one.

Introduction

Ypsilanti, Mich., -- The mission of this blog is to provide accurate, timely information about the Eastern Michigan University athletic program in a hard news format. Posts will be created with the cooperation of the Eastern Echo's sports blog "Eagle's Landing" and other syndicated sports news Web blogs and sites such as ESPN.com and Mlive.com.

Game recaps of upcoming baseball games are the most likely to be covered first. There are a number of games in early April that will be available to read shortly after the games are over. For now, the team is out of town. Other athletics and programs will be targeted in the absence of the baseball team. The plan is to incorporate video, audio and pictures in to posts from actual sporting events. Some posts will be competitions covered by the Eastern Echo. Hopefully, there will be other posts that will cover events not being covered by the paper, such as ultimate frisbee and other up-and-coming sports.