Shawnee, Kan. - The No. 14 Central Methodist Baseball Team split the first day of their weekend series against No. 25 MidAmerica Nazarene Friday afternoon at the Mid-America Sports Complex in Shawnee, Kansas.
Central now stands at 7-5 overall and 1-1 in the Heart, while MNU is 5-4 and 1-1 in conference play.
Game 1: No. 14 CMU 21 - No. 25 MNU 2
The Eagles put on a show in their first game, beginning in the opening frame when they plated six runs in the first.
Kyle Williams brought home the first run of the game as he doubled down the left field line to cash in Valentin Cerna Jr.
Williams would later come around to score off of a Jack Prewett sacrifice fly.
A couple errors by the Pioneers resulted in three more runs for Central. David Soriano would cap the inning with a single to left, pushing across the sixth run of the inning.
After scoring in the first inning, Cerna Jr. would add an RBI to his day, doubling to left center field in the top of the third.
The Pioneers would get one back in the top of the fourth off a solo homerun.
Central's bats were hot again in the top of the fifth, increasing their lead to 12-1. The dominant day continued in the sixth, as they added eight more runs to make it a 20-1 game.
The Eagles would close out the first game cashing in one more run in the final inning. Brian Chandler singled to center field to bring Peyton Becker around to score from second.
Foster Seitz was the winning pitcher, throwing five solid innings and allowing just one earned run on three hits. He struck out six during that span.
Alfred Ulloa tossed the final two innings, giving up one earned run with two strikeouts.
Game 2: No. 25 MNU 4 - No. 14 CMU 3
Central got the scoring started in the top of the second of game two, as Ryan Malzahn homered to right field.
The Pioneers wasted no time in tying the game in the bottom half of the frame on an RBI-single back up the middle.
After two scoreless innings, Central retook the lead in the fifth off a Tanner Sears single to center that scored Cerna Jr.
MidAmerica would, again, respond immediately in the bottom half of the frame, this time with a two-run bomb to take a 3-2 lead heading into the sixth.
A Malzahn fly out to center advanced Darius Freeman from second to third. A throwing error in the same sequence from MNU allowed Freeman to make his way home to tie the game at 3-3.
The bats for both teams went quite in the seventh inning and the game would have to be decided in extras.
MNU drove in the game winner in the bottom half of the eighth on an RBI single to center.
The Eagles scored three runs on five hits with no errors while MidAmerica put four on the board off of 11 base hits.
Malzahn went two-for-three at the dish with one RBI.
Up Next:
Central will close out the weekend with two more games against the Pioneers Saturday, March 1 beginning at 12:00 p.m in Shawnee.
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