MUNCIE, Ind. – The Toledo baseball team lost its series opener at Ball State on Friday by a score of 14-2.

The Rockets led 2-0 heading into the bottom of the seventh and had held one of the better offenses in the MAC to just four hits to that point. The bottom of the seventh turned out to be an entirely different story, however, as the Cardinals sent 15 hitters to the plate and scored 12 runs to completely flip the script. They Rockets were unable to answer the offensive barrage over the final two innings in Muncie.

"For six innings that was a great game between two good teams," head coach Rob Reinstetle said. "The scoreboard looks ugly at the end but doesn't quite tell the full story. Noah Johnson was fantastic today and pretty much dominated their offense until he had to come out. I credit Ball State, they took a page out of our playbook by keeping the game close until you can put something good together offensively, and boy did they do that.  We've been really good at closing out games here as of late with our bullpen, but today that obviously was not the case. When you give up 14 runs and 12 hits in the seventh and eighth innings, it's almost impossible to overcome."

Johnson had six shutout innings to his name entering the bottom of the seventh and tallied six strikeouts on the afternoon. At the plate, Junior Jeron Williams went 2-for-5 with a two-run homer to extend his hitting streak to 24 games and sophomore Brayden White had a multi-hit day as well, going 2-for-3.

Toledo and Ball State will resume their weekend series on Sunday with a doubleheader beginning at noon.

"We are still 3-1 in MAC play and have a great opportunity to get out of here on Sunday with some wins," Reinstetle said. "Today got away from us late, but we'll come ready to play Sunday."

• Jeron Williams got Toledo on the scoreboard first with a two-run home run. Brayden White's one-out single put a runner on base for Williams, who lifted a 2-0 pitch over the fence in right field to put Toledo up 2-0.
• Noah Johnson held Ball State hitless for the first 3.2 innings of the game before allowing a double and an infield single in the bottom of the fourth. He went on to induce a harmless ground ball to escape the inning unscathed.
• The seventh inning was one to forget for the Rockets. Ball State slugged four home runs and scored 12 runs to take a commanding 12-2 lead.
• Two RBI doubles in the bottom of the eighth tacked another couple runs onto Ball State's lead, bringing the score to 14-2.