Baseball Upends Northern Illinois, 9-3

Box score

YPSILANTI, Mich. — Facing elimination, the No. 1 seed Eastern Michigan University baseball team responded with a 9-3 victory over No. 5 seed Northern Illinois University to advance to the championship game of the 2007 Mid-American Conference Tournament here Friday night at Oestrike Stadium. The Eagles (32-23) will face No. 2 seed Kent State and must defeat the Golden Flashes twice to claim the tournament title. Both teams will square off on Saturday May 26 at 12:05 p.m. with the game being televised live on Comcast Local (channel 8) in Ypsilanti.

After going cold earlier in the afternoon against Kent State, EMU’s offense got back on track scoring nine runs on 12 hits. Sophomore Kyle Rhoad led the way for the Eagles going 3-for-5 with three RBI, two runs scored and his third home run of the tournament. Senior Trumaine Riley went a perfect 2-for-2 with two runs scored, an RBI and a run scored. Junior Mike Boyd also went 2-for-5 with RBI and a stolen base.

Freshman Cory Chaffins (2-2) picked up to win with a solid effort on the mound allowing only two runs on four hits scattered hits with three strikeouts in 7.2 innings of work. At one point, Chaffins allowed only one hit in six scoreless innings.

Northern Illinois was led by Brett Kellam who went 1-for-2 with a run scored while Adam Holdenrid picked up the loss going 4.1 innings allowing four runs on four hits with a strikeout.

EMU got on the board first in the top of the third inning as Riley singled to left and was driven in by a Boyd sacrifice fly to deep left field to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead.

Davis got things going in the top of the fourth with a single to center field. After Josh Ivan was hit by a pitch, Riley notched his second hit of the game to score Jeff Davis. Rhoad followed with an RBI single to plate Ivan moving Riley over to third. Boyd notched his second RBI of the game with a single to the shortstop to score Riley. After a double steal by Rhoad and Boyd, Rhoad came home on a wild pitch to give EMU a 5-0 lead.

With Ivan on second base, Rhoad belted a home run to give EMU a commanding 7-0 lead. Eastern added two more runs to go up 9-0 off a Derek Lehrman RBI double and Steve Bradshaw RBI single.

Northern Illinois added two runs in the eighth inning and one in the ninth before sophomore Bobby Henderson got the last batter to line out to shortstop to end the game.

Eastern Michigan Athletics

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