Ball State Baseball Dominates Defending National Champions Miami
March 13, 2002
CORAL GABLES, FLA. - The Ball State University baseball team claimed its second straight win of the season by dominating the defending National Champion No. 17 Miami Hurricanes. Led by 2001 MAC Pitcher of the Year and 2001 USA National Team member junior Bryan Bullington (Madison, Ind./Madison), the Cardinals handed the Hurricanes a 12-4 defeat Wednesday, March 13. The win is BSU's fourth of the season and improves the team's record to 4-5, while Miami falls to 10-9 on the year.
"This was an outstanding win for the program," said Ball State Head Coach Rich Maloney. "To play the defending national champions and to dominate them in every facette of the game was impressive. This was a special experience for the guys. Now we know we can play with the top teams in the country."
Bullington showed his pitching dominance early in the game, after allowing the first two Hurricane batters to record hits, with one run, Bullington shut down the next 14 batters he faced. During the stretch of 14 straight outs, Bullington cut down six Miami batters swinging.
"Bullington has been dreaming about this game ever since we scheduled it a year ago," said Maloney. "It was awesome to watch him dominate a great hitting club. He was throwing 92 to 94 miles per hour throughout the game. It was especially great to watch him perform at such a high level in front of so many MLB scouts and general managers. He raised himself to the level of the elite. It was his day."
Overall, Bullington threw eight innings, setting down a BSU season-high 13 batters. He gave up just eight hits and four runs (three earned) in his third outing of the season. Bullington played a major role in ending the Hurricanes streak of 12-straight games with a home run.
Going into the contest Miami was hitting .325 with 26 home runs. Bullington held Miami to a .250 (8-of-32) average and no home runs. Paul Henry (Chattanooga, Tenn./Notre Dame) threw the last inning for the Cardinals, facing four batters, recording one strikeout and giving up one hit. Henry also went 2-for-5 with two runs and one RBI at the plate.
Offensively, the Cardinals put on a show for the No. 17 Hurricanes. Capped by Adam Metzler's (Zionsville, Ind./Zionsville) two run blast over the right-center field fence, his second of the season, BSU out-hit Miami 11-9. Metzler went 3-of-4 on the day with two RBI and one run scored.
Ben Schroeder (Dubuque, Iowa/Assumption) had a .500 (3-of-6) outing with three singles, two RBI and two runs scored. Brad Snyder (Bellevue, Ohio/Bellevue Senior) scored three runs with one hit and two walks.
"It was a great experience to watch the team play so relaxed, so confident and to have so much fun out on the field," said Maloney. "This win will give us a lot of confidence going into any game we play. We have an excellent opportunity to show that confidence tomorrow when we play another top team in the country, Florida International."
The defending National Champion Miami Hurricanes came out strong, with the first two batters recording two hits and a run. Ball State answered back in the top of the second recording a run of its own. BSU added another run in the top of the fourth and four in the fifth to pull out to a 6-1 lead.
No. 17 Miami pulled back to within four runs with a run in the bottom of the sixth. However, BSU answerd back in the top of the seventh by adding three more runs to its total. The Hurricanes once again tried to mount a comeback in the bottom half of the eighth, getting one run, then loading the bases. Miami got one more run across in the inning, for a total of two, but Bullington forced Miami's Danny Figueroa to hit into a fielders choice at third base.
Ball State put the game totally out of reach in the top of the ninth by adding three more runs for a total of 12. Henry then came on to pitch in the ninth and shut the Hurricanes down.
In the game, BSU recorded 12 runs on 11 hits with one error. Miami produced only four runs on nine hits with four errors.
The Ball State Cardinals will return to action Thursday, March 14, as the team heads to Miami, Fla., to take on Florida International in a 7 p.m. match-up.
