HIGH POINT – Tuesday afternoon, the North Carolina A&T baseball team dropped a midweek contest against the Central Michigan Chippewas, 9-3, inside Truist Point Ballpark.
Freshman Jaheim Brown (L, 0-1) got the start on the mound for A&T (6-7) but only went four innings and gave up five runs on three hits, striking out four.
CMU (4-7) got their offense going quickly, putting up five runs in the top of the second inning.
Drew Lechnir scored the game's first run on a passed ball. Then, with runners on second and third, Mario Camilletti reached on a fielding error from first baseman Cort Maynard that scored Robby Morgan, making it 2-0.
Colton Coca followed by slapping a groundball back to the mound, but Brown threw the ball wide of Maynard at first, and it rolled into A&T's bullpen area down the first-base line, allowing both Camilletti and Drew Stengren to score.
With Coca on second, Garrett Navarra sent a single right back up the middle to bring him around to score, making it 5-0.
In the fourth, after junior infielder Anthony Hennings and sophomore outfielder Xavier Bussey drew walks, sophomore Alex Reyna stepped into the batter's box and roped a double off the right field wall to cash in both runners to cut the deficit to 5-2.
The Chippewas tacked on another run in the sixth. Hennings picked the groundball sent his way and tried to tag the runner heading to third base for the final out but missed the tag, allowing Camilletti to score from third.
CMU added three more runs to their tally in the eighth to jump out to a 9-2 advantage. They were led offensively by Coca's four-RBI effort. As for the Aggies, they could only muster seven hits as a team, led by Reyna's two-hit performance.
In a pinch-hit effort, junior infielder Bret Mersman singled to right field to score sophomore Shemar Dalton, who had doubled earlier in the frame, compiling A&T's third run.
