PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. – Butler got on the scoreboard first against Central Michigan on Wednesday afternoon, but the Chippewas would fight back with three runs in the third followed by three more runs in the fourth to earn an 8-3 victory.

The bottom of the lineup led BU in a losing effort as Mike Kseniak, Garrett Christman and Michael Hartnagel all recorded two hits. On the mound, Quentin Miller was tagged with the loss (0-2).

Kseniak and Hartnagel came up with timely hits in the second to give BU the early lead. Kseniak's RBI single scored Jordan Lucio and after a base knock from Christman, Hartnagel stepped to the dish to send Kseniak home on his RBI single.

The top of the third inning helped change the outcome as CMU's Daniel Jipping gave the Chippewas the lead with one swing of the bat. Jipping delivered a three-run homerun with two outs. That at-bat combined with a costly BU error in the fourth allowed CMU to come out on top.

In the fourth, an error by the Butler third baseman extended the inning that featured three runs off three hits. The first run scored on the error, the second on a ground out, and the third would come home on a Zach McKinstry RBI single.

The Bulldogs chipped away at the lead in the bottom of the fifth with an RBI single from Tyler Houston that scored Hartnagel, but a CMU pitching change would close the side with a strikeout.

The Chippewas used four arms on the day, the same number as Butler. Jimmy McNamara got the win for CMU even though Jason Gamble got the start. Miller was tagged with the loss after his 3.2 innings of work. Relief innings went to Bobby Napoleon, Sam Hubbe and Luke Johnson.