Approaching the half-way point of its Mid-American Conference schedule, the Ball State University baseball team will be given one of its tougher challenges this weekend with a three-game series at Kent State University.
The Cardinals and Golden Flashes both lead their respective divisions with 6-3 conference records. Ball State leads Central Michigan University in the West Division standings by half a game and Kent State leads Bowling Green State University by a game in the East.
"The guys know it's a big weekend going into Kent [State]," coach Greg Beals said. "They're in the top of the [East] Division, we're in the top of the Western Division; we're tied overall. There's not a whole lot of motivational speeches that need to be made."
Kent State (18-11 overall, 6-3 MAC) has won seven of its last eight games, its only loss coming at Northern Illinois University last weekend.
The Golden Flashes have shown offensive firepower similar to Ball State's in recent weeks. Six of those seven wins came with Kent State scoring at least 11 runs, topped off by a 21-2 win over Northern Illinois.
"We know we're going into the den of thieves and we're going to have to go steal some," Beals said.
With a .313 team batting average, Kent State leads the MAC and also has the league's top individual batter in Emmanuel Burriss, who's batting .425 in 27 games.
"Kent State's a very good team and we're going to have to play well to beat them, but the goal is to win every series," second baseman Kyle Dygert said. "If we do that, we'll be in the tournament, which is where we want to be at the end of the year."
Ball State (18-14 overall, 6-3 MAC) defeated the University of Dayton 16-5 on Tuesday, and came from seven runs behind to defeat Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne 17-15 on Wednesday.
"We finished up rough against Ohio [University] so it's important to get back on the winning track in conference play," Dygert said. "That's what we base our goals around, that's what our season's based around."
Only able to get one hit in the first three innings against IPFW, Ball State fell behind 7-0 before scoring eight of the next 11 runs in the game. In the eighth inning, the Cardinals took their first lead on Matt Gard's three-run home run and held a 15-10 lead going into the ninth.
The Mastodons tied the game with a three-run blast by catcher Brent Doty, but Dygert ended the game with a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth.
"Fifteen hits, 17 runs," first baseman Brad Miller said. "Anytime you do that, you just try to carry that over to the next game no matter who it is."
Justin Rogers extended his hitting streak to 14 by going 6-for-9 in the two games, including four hits against Dayton. Mike Sullivan also extended his hitting streak to 10 by adding five hits.
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