Sports

Ohio comes from behind to get pivotal MAC win over Eastern Michigan

By: Marc Goldstein
Posted on: Friday, March 28, 2025

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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — As Nick Dolan watched Ben Slanker get intentionally walked ahead of him, he knew that he had the chance to do something special for his team. Dolan would take the first pitch he saw and line it into right-center field for the go-ahead run to score in the bottom of the eighth to give Ohio (7-17, 3-7 MAC) a 4-3 lead over Eastern Michigan (11-11, 6-4 MAC) that it would not relinquish. 

“(I wanted to) put the ball in play somewhere hard,” Dolan said. “I didn’t really know what was going to come in the at bat, but as long as I found a gap somewhere, I was trying to spark something.” 

For the first 5.5 innings of the game, Ohio looked to be dead in the water once again. It appeared to have wasted another strong start from Blake Gaskey in the process. 

Between Gaskey and Eastern Michigan starter Drew Beckner, there was almost zero offense. Eastern Michigan had scraped together some slight rumblings of offense with an RBI single by John Hale in the third and an RBI hit-by-pitch by Bruce Jellison in the fifth, giving Eastern Michigan a 2-0 lead. 

The Bobcats entered the bottom of the fifth without a base runner as Beckner was perfect to that point. They were able to break up the perfect game when Trae Cassidy got the first hit for the Bobcats with a seeing-eye single past the third baseman into left. Regardless, the Bobcats were still in a two-run hole that felt like 20 with the way Beckner was pitching. 

At just over 90 pitches, Ohio head coach Craig Moore elected to send Gaskey out for the sixth. That decision seemed to be questionable when Gaskey walked the first batter of the frame and the next hit a ball that no one on the infield could get to for what looked to be an infield hit. On the play, the runner at first, Brendan Kleiman, attempted to make it to third, but was thrown out. The batter, Giano Zuccaro, made it to second as Ohio threw to third to nab Kleiman. Zuccaro’s stay at second, though, would be short lived as he was doubled off when a low line drive was snared by second baseman Matt Ineich right behind the bag to end the inning. 

Escaping that inning must have sparked something in Ohio as Blake Reed led off the inning with a single before Trenton Neuer capped off a brilliant plate appearance with a walk to put two on with no one out. An infield single on a bunt by Ineich loaded the bases and also ended the day for Beckner. 

The first pitch to JR Nelson would go to the backstop to cut the deficit in half for Ohio before Nelson would ground one to short that tied the game at two apiece. Pauly Mancino would not waste much more time as he would sky one to center that would bring home the third run of the inning and give Ohio its first lead of the afternoon. 

With a 3-2 lead in hand, Moore entrusted the game to Trey Barkman for the seventh inning. The bullpen has been a cause for concern for the Bobcats this year as countless games have been blown late after a meltdown by the relief corps. 

Barkman worked around a walk. After a scoreless inning by the Ohio offense, the game was turned over to Jack Geiser in the eighth. The swingman for Ohio would get two quick outs with just a runner on first. A grounder to first baseman Trae Cassidy appeared to be the end of the inning, but the second error of the game for Cassidy extended the frame for Connor Walsh. Naturally, Walsh would line a single into left to tie the game. 

Nonetheless, Ohio would pick up Geiser with Dolan’s heroics to give Geiser a one-run lead again heading into the ninth. 

“I trusted my guys,” Geiser said. “Errors are going to happen, but I had faith in them to give me a run there to work with in the top of the ninth.”

Geiser would reward his coach for a second inning of work and his offense for picking up the run with a quick and scoreless final frame. For one day, the Bobcat bullpen held and inspired confidence for their skipper. 

“That was a huge confidence boost for the back-end guys,” Moore said. “What Blake did today, going six innings and giving us a quality start…We asked Trey to get just three outs and we asked Jack to be extended a little bit and he stepped up.”

Moreover, the win was one where Ohio proved it did not need to necessarily out-slug its opponent and could instead win a low-scoring affair. The bugaboo for Ohio this season has been close games. Heading into the game on Friday, the team was 4-12 in games decided by three runs or fewer and 0-4 in one-run games. Both of those inauspicious streaks were brushed aside on Friday, though. 

The win does not solve everything for Ohio, but it does give the team some confidence as the weekend continues and the season progresses that there are ways to win without simply outsourcing an opponent. When the final out was recorded by Geiser, the palpable exhale from the third base dugout put the tension of losing at ease.