Kent State traveled to Avon to participate in the 2025 Mid-American Conference Tournament. The Flashes entered the tournament as the second seed after sharing the regular season title with the Miami Redhawks. 

Friday vs. Ball State – Winner’s Bracket Semifinal

Intense. One word is all that is needed to describe the Flashes tournament opening matchup. After withstanding a delay to Friday due to rain earlier in the week, the Flashes opened up the tournament with a matchup against Ball State, who came off a win in the first round of the tournament against Eastern Michigan.

Sophomore righty Jake Bean took the mound to open up the tournament for the Flashes. He pitched into the sixth inning, allowing 4 runs on eight hits. 

Ball State started the scoring in the first on a double play ball that the Flashes traded two outs for the run.

Despite the instant classic status this game would earn, the Flashes put this game squarely in blowout territory to start. Junior shortstop Luke Matthews led off the bottom half first with a single, and soon after graduate student Hayden Jatczak homered the other way in his first at bat since being named MAC Player of the Year.

Ball State would then record two outs before the bats exploded for two more runs on singles from freshman Micah Kiracofe and redshirt sophomore Ripken Reese.

In the top half of the second, the Flashes would turn their second of three double plays before showing off more offense. 

They added two more runs on a single from MAC Freshman of the Year Sawyer Solitaria and a walk from senior Hunter Klotz that scored senior outfielder Jake Casey. This made it 6-1 and chased Cardinals starter Jacob Hartlaub from the game after recording just four outs and throwing 73 pitches. 

Alex Burden would come in and shut things down for the Cardinals, while Blake Bevis would drive in his second run of the game to trim the lead to four in the third.

Matthews would get the lead back to five with a single to the pitcher, the second of three hits on the day, that scored Kiracofe. Ball State would cut the lead to three with a sacrifice fly from Alex Richter and a double from Ty Davis, which Kent would respond with a double from Reese that scored Kiracofe for the second inning in a row.

The eighth inning turned what should have been a comfortable win by Kent to an instant classic that will be talked about for years to come in the inner MAC baseball world.

Ball State led off the inning with two singles, which senior southpaw closer Peyton Cariaco would enter the ball game to lock down a six out save. Richter would single to drive in Nick Husovsky, a groundout would score Bevis and Richter would come around to score on an error by Brody Williams after a throw down to third to cut the lead to one.

Garrett Arnold would then come off the bench and double down the line to tie the game at 8-8 in the biggest at bat of the season.

Graduate student Benny Roebuck then came into the ball game and held the runner at second to keep the game tied at eight.

In the ninth, Dylan Grego led off the inning with a single before Kiracofe made one of the greatest catches one will ever see to save a run after a lengthy delay to review it. Bevis then struck out and was called for batter’s interference on the steal attempt by Grego to end the inning.

The bottom half of the ninth brought even more drama as Matthews led off the ninth with his third hit of the game. Matthews stole second which led to the Cardinals intentionally walking Jatczak. A wild pitch forced the Cardinals to intentionally walk Casey to set up a force play at the plate.

The move paid off as Solitaria then grounded into a fielder’s choice as the Cardinals just barely got Matthews on a force play at home. That would’ve ended the ball game if not for the force being in play. The close play at the plate was reviewed and confirmed shortly after.

Williams then hit a sacrifice fly to win an instant classic for the Flashes by a score of 9-8. Each team had at least 15 hits with Ball State slightly outhitting the Flashes by a total of 16-15.

Roebuck earned the win with the loss going to Owen Quinn.

The win set up a matchup against Miami (OH) who defeated the Toledo Rockets 10-4 earlier in the day.

Saturday vs. Miami (OH) – Winner’s Bracket Final

After a very intense victory, the Flashes took on fellow regular season champion Miami. The winner of this game got a ticket straight to the championship.

Gavin Jones was tasked with pitching the Flashes to the championship game, but his outing was a disaster. He allowed six earned runs on five hits and five walks.

The Flashes jumped ahead 1-0 in the second on a single from Reese that scored Kiracofe. It was the one blemish on an otherwise beautiful performance from Miami pitcher Cooper Katskee.

Miami would gain control of the game immediately with a Tommy Harrison no doubt homer to right field. The inning would go from bad to worse Anthony Zarlingo took a full count pitch up the middle to score two more runners.

In the fourth inning the Redhawks added the final two runs of the game on singles from Dillon Baker and Evan Appelwick.

Katskee cruised the rest of the way through the ballgame, allowing just two runners to reach scoring position after allowing the second inning run.

In the end, he threw a complete game allowing the run on five hits, two walks and striking out 6.

Katskee was the winning pitcher with Jones being saddled with his second loss of the season against Miami.

Saturday vs. Toledo – Loser’s Bracket Final

After losing in a complete game effort by Katskee, the Flashes switched ends of the dugout and played the Cinderella team of the tournament in the Toledo Rockets.

Toledo was playing their fifth game in 48 hours, beating Ball State 13-10 in an elimination game earlier in the day to advance to this matchup. 

Redshirt freshman pitcher Evan Holewinski was tasked with extending the season. In a similar way to Brody Krzysiak in the first game, he saved the pitching staff by having the longest start of his collegiate career.

He allowed four runs through four and a third innings. Three of them earned on five hits and no walks, while also adding three strikeouts to his season total.

Toledo would start off hot, continuing their offensive hot streak that marked this tournament run. Brayden White singled in two runners in the second before Caden Konczak launched a home run in the third to quickly put the Flashes on upset alert 3-0.

Jatczak would respond with a home run to make it 3-1, but that would be just one of the two Flashes hits for the ballgame as the offense went ice cold.

In the fifth, the Rockets would take advantage of two Flashes errors to plate across a fourth run.

In the bottom half, right hander Ryan Kennedy, a Virginia Tech transfer, got into the biggest trouble of the night, loading the bases on three straight walks to begin the inning. 

Looking for a spark, the Flashes turned to sophomore catcher Dom Kibler to pinch hit for Solitaria. Kibler struck out looking. Kennedy would walk in the final run of the day during a Williams at bat before striking out two more batters and getting out of the jam.

Defensive miscues would plague the rest of the day for a Flashes offense that got absolutely nothing going the rest of the game, and struggled its way through both games Saturday.

In total, they made five errors, which tied a season high set against Northern Illinois on March 9 and was a big problem for part of the season.

Toledo would put the dagger in Kent’s season with a Luke Leto shot to right that scored two and made the final score 6-2.

With the loss, the Flashes were eliminated from the conference tournament and Toledo moved on to the championship game.

Kennedy earned the win after throwing a season high 109 pitches and Holewinski was saddled with the loss. Ryan Hughes pitched the final three innings to earn the save for the Rockets.

The notables

Pitching depth as a whole was challenged throughout the entire tournament, with Toledo withstanding the challenges best, getting 109 Pitches from Kennedy and getting 129 pitches from Yianni Skeriotis, 50 more than his previous season high of 79.

Keeping in line with that theme, two pitchers for Kent did that. Kryzsiak threw three and a third innings, saving a pitching staff that if it had come back and won the title, would have had at least 27 innings left to cover in the following games it needed to win.

Holewinski was the first starter to cover innings in the elimination game and had the longest start of his career. The Flashes may have not won the title but those two efforts stood out during the tournament and showcased some of the potential talent Kent will have after losing some key pitching contributors in Cariaco and Eric Chalus.

Offensively on Friday, long at bats were key, especially in the first two innings. Three of the first five hitters all went to full counts and more. The team as a whole thrived, drawing eight walks including three each from Jatczak and Williams to align with the team’s fifteen hits.

Season recap

The Flashes end a very successful season at 38-18. Despite losing in the conference tournament, the team will still get some rings as they were co-regular season champions.

On the player side of things, the offense was very successful, as Jatczak was player of the year in the conference. Casey, Solitaria and Bean joined him in being named first team All-MAC.

Matthews was named to the second team and possibly could’ve been named first team if he didn’t miss any time during the season.

Klotz wrapped up a solid defensive season with an all defensive team selection, and Solitaria wrapped up awards season by being named freshman of the year in the conference.

Statistically, the offense excelled with five qualified hitters batting .300 or higher. 

Some of the hitters that weren’t qualified but saw heavy playing time makes the list jump to seven batters over .300.

On the pitching side, redshirt junior Rocco Bernadina had an ERA under three in just over 27 innings pitched in league play. Senior Caden Leonard had an ERA under two as a high leverage bullpen arm in league play.  

Bean especially came out of the gate firing to an ERA just over four for the season that drops to a 3.15 against conference opponents He should look to become a highly sought after draft prospect if he continues this growth into next season.

Stone O’Bryant is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].