LOS ANGELES — The Occidental baseball team won both games of a doubleheader with Caltech on Saturday afternoon, finishing a 3-0 in the series and coming away with their first sweep of the season.
The Tigers won the three games by a combined score of 27-5, improving their record to 7-8 overall and 6-3 in conference play.
Game 1: Occidental 3, Caltech 2
Mitch Margolis was an assassin on the mound through the first five innings, recording eight strikeouts and only allowing one run off of three hits. Freshman Riley James followed up Margolis' stellar performance by closing out the final four innings with ease, giving up only one run off of one hit.
Offensively, Riley Smith, Scott Ericksen, and Johnathan Brooks paced the Oxy squad. The trio combined for six hits (two apiece) and two of the Tigers' three RBIs.
Despite not scoring after the 4th inning, Oxy managed to hold off Caltech's comeback attempts in the 5th and 6th innings when the Beavers scored their only two runs of the game.
Game 2: Occidental 13, Caltech 3 (7 innings)
While the outcome of game 1 was in jeopardy for its entirety, the second half of the doubleheader was a much different story.
Occidental's bats were hot early, and they jumped out to an early 8-0 lead after just three innings.Victor Munoz led the Tigers offensively, notching a two run double in the first inning, and then following it up with another double to lead off the 3rd.
Brooks and Chris Harms each recorded two RBIs in the game, and Brooks finished the day with a .600 batting average.
Caltech managed to put three runs on the board in the 6th, but Oxy quickly doused the comeback attempt by scoring two of their own in the 7th inning and ending the game early.
"It always feels good to sweep a series," Occidental head coach Luke Wetmore said. "We try to hold ourselves to a higher standard in terms of the way we play the game. I've always said 'a win is a win is a win', but we want to play baseball the caliber of baseball that's going to win us a regional game. From that standpoint, we got a lot of stuff to work on. The guys know that and they continue to work hard in practice and do the things we ask of them. We've got some better baseball ahead of us."
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