WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - The Milwaukee baseball team let a pair of early leads get away in falling to Ball State by a final score of 11-5 Friday evening at the Russmatt Baseball 2016 Central Florida Invitational.
 
The Panthers (2-4) led by scores of 2-0 and 4-2, but saw the Cardinals (2-3) rally with three runs in each of the fifth and sixth innings to take control.
 
Luke Meeteer added some history in the contest, becoming the 12^th player to record 200 hits in a Milwaukee career when he led off the contest with a double down the left field line.
 
Billy Quirke and John Boidanis led the offense with three hits. Meeteer and Daulton Varsho had two apiece, as Milwaukee won the hit column, 15-11.
 
"I am not taking any credit away from them at all, because they played a very clean game, but we just beat ourselves," Milwaukee head coach Scott Doffek said. "You can't give good teams free bases and extra outs. We put ourselves in harm's way all game. We chased a good arm from the game early with good at bats, but the second half of that game we were non-competitive with two strikes and they exposed it."
 
Milwaukee jumped out of the gates with five hits in the first inning alone. Quirke's single plated Meeteer from second but following a caught-stealing and a groundout, one run was all it looked like UWM would get. However, singles by Nick Unes, Cole Heili and Mike Jordahl made it 2-0.
 
Ball State answered to tie the game at 2-2 in its half, but just like that the Panthers were up two again. Eric Solberg would score on a wild pitch and Quirke would add yet another RBI-hit to make it 4-2.
 
That was where the Panthers would stall. The Cardinals got one back in the fourth and then Caleb Stayton socked a three-run home run in the fifth to give them the lead for good.
 
Quirke added two more RBI on the day. Stayton finished with a game-high six runs batted in. Austin Schulfer started, allowing four earned runs in 4.0 innings. Jake Tuttle (1-1) suffered the loss, allowing four runs (two earned) in 1.1 innings.
 
These two teams will meet again tomorrow, starting at 5 p.m. CST.