Boston College Baseball Loses to Western Michigan, 5-3

Boston College Eagles baseball could not complete a sweep of their games in the 2014 Snowbird Classic.

On Sunday afternoon in Port Charlotte, Florida, Birdball was defeated by the Western Michigan Broncos, 5-3. With the loss, Boston College has fallen to 6-4 on the season.

The Eagles never led in the contest, which saw the Broncos take a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning following a leadoff grounds-rule double and subsequent RBI single. It would not be until the bottom of the fifth that the Eagles tied the game, 1-1, putting a run on the board with a Joe Cronin RBI double.

Western Michigan would go on to score the next four runs of the game with one in the top of the sixth, two more in the top of the seventh, and one more in the top of the eighth. By then, Boston College starter Jeff Burke (5 IP, 1 ER, 3 H) had been chased and Nick Poore took the brunt of the hardship. The junior lefty would get five outs, but allowed three earned runs and took the loss.

Boston College scored a run each in the bottom of the eighth and ninth, which included Gabriel Hernandez’s first home run of the season off of Western Michigan’s Pat Haynes to lead off the bottom of the ninth. This was the team’s second home run of the season, but it was not enough to spark a rally as his teammates went down 1-2-3 thereafter.

The Eagles will next play a two-game set in Boca Raton against the Florida Atlantic Owls, followed by their opening ACC series of the season at Miami.