In a series between the two best teams in the Mid-American Conference, the Ball State University baseball squad's slow start prevented it from taking control of the league's standings.
The Cardinals (19-16 overall, 7-5 MAC) lost two of three games against Kent State University (20-12 overall, 8-4 MAC).
Kent State scored all seven of its runs in the first three innings of game one and held on after Ball State made a charge for a 7-6 win.
A six-run lead after three innings in game two wasn't enough for the Golden Flashes as Ball State scored 10 of the final 13 runs for a 10-9 win.
Game three remained scoreless until the fifth inning when the Golden Flashes broke through with a run in the fifth. Six more scores the next inning were insurance runs and Kent State won, 7-2.
"It just puts us a game back of the leaders," coach Greg Beals said. "We've got a lot of baseball to play and I think our destiny is still in our own hands. It's disappointing but it's not going to be detrimental to our season."
Kent State still leads the East Division while Ball State is third in the West behind Central Michigan and Western Michigan.
After scoring a run in each of the first two innings, four RBI base hits and a sacrifice bunt Kent State lead 7-0 in the third inning on Friday.
"I feel if we had a few more innings, we would have won that game," center fielder Mike Sullivan said. "We made a good run, but we ran out of innings."
The game's momentum started to shift in the fifth inning with two Ball State home runs, and the Cardinals added two runs the next inning to come within three. A two-run home run in the eighth inning by second baseman Kyle Dygert brought the Cardinals to within one, and Kent State appeared on the edge of giving up the lead with two runners on base with two outs. But catcher Matt Singleton flied out to right field to end the inning.
"In game one, we got behind, and in the second half of the game, we dominated," Beals said. "We were one hit away. It felt like the flow of the game was in our direction. We played really well in the last six innings."
After scoring three runs in the middle of game two to come to within 8-3, Ball State scored a total of seven runs in the seventh and eighth innings.
Sullivan singled to score Singleton for Ball State's first and only lead of the weekend in the top of the eighth. Kyle Heyne entered the game in the bottom of the inning with a man on first and picked up his sixth save of the season.
"They weren't much of a better team than us," Heyne said. "We were pretty equal. We hung in there and battled. We knew we could win, it just took us a while to get going."
The two lone runs Ball State scored in game three came in the eighth inning by Sullivan and Singleton. Sullivan led the Cardinals offensively by finishing 5-for-12 over the weekend.
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