The Bowling Green State University baseball team continued a historic season on Thursday with a 3-1 win over Toledo at Steller Field.
The win for the Falcons marks the 15th 30-win season in program history for Bowling Green and the first since 2010.
Additionally, BGSU now has 22 MAC wins for just the third time in program history, matching the program record held by the 1995 and 1999 Falcon squads. BGSU and Toledo will continue the series on Friday at Fifth Third Field, the home of the Toledo Mud Hens, with a 7 p.m. first pitch.
For the Falcons, Rigo Ramos stood strong on the mound in the start on the BGSU side of a pitcher’s duel. Ramos tossed four scoreless innings for the Falcons before Tyler Ross belted a solo home run to give the Falcons the lead.
Toledo tied the game in the sixth, but another Ross home run in the bottom half pushed BGSU back in front. An insurance run in the seventh for Bowling Green, a strong Isaiah Seidel outing out of the bullpen and a Jacob Turner save secured the win for the Orange and Brown.
The game began with a pitcher’s duel, going scoreless through four-and-a-half innings, including a top of the fourth where Rigo Ramos struck out the Rockets in order, all swinging to bring his strikeout total to six through four innings.
After Ramos struck out the side, Tyler Ross kept the momentum for the Falcons with a solo home run to left center on the first pitch of the bottom half of the inning for a 1-0 BGSU lead.
Toledo added a run in the sixth inning to tie the game at 1-1 before a BGSU pitching change.
Ross immediately brought BGSU’s response, belting another home run to left center on the first pitch of the sixth inning to put the Falcons back in front, 2-1.
In the seventh inning, Landon Roque led off with a single through the left side of the infield. He took second and third on wild pitches while Caden Parker drew a walk to put runners at the corners. Garrett Wright delivered a single into center to
Nathan Archer logged four at-bats in the game, bringing his season total to 224 to match the program record, tying Aric Christman’s 2001 season.
Tyler Ross hit two home runs in the game for the Falcons, his second two-home run game of the season and the first multiple home run game for BGSU since Archer had two against Oakland on May 1.
Landon Roque drilled a single through the left side of the infield in the seventh inning to extend his hitting streak to 10 games, the second-longest active streak on the team.
Leighton Banjoff ripped a single in the second inning to extend his on-base streak to 23 games for the Falcons, the longest active streak for Bowling Green. Banjoff has also logged a hit in eight of the last nine games for BGSU.
Rigo Ramos got the start for the Falcons and struck out seven batters over 5.2 innings of work. As a team, BGSU now has 364 strikeouts this season, sitting four shy of tying and five from breaking the program record for strikeouts in a season.
Isaiah Seidel picked up his second win of the season, pitching three innings of scoreless relief.
Jacob Turner came in and recorded the final out of the game for his team-leading fourth save of the season.
After Friday’s game in downtown Toledo, the Battle of I-75 will conclude on Saturday with a 3 p.m. first pitch at Steller Field, including Senior Day festivities before the game.
