SAN ANTONIO – The 13th-ranked Trinity University baseball team opened its best-of-five NCAA Regional Series with an 18-9 victory over #16 University of La Verne on Friday afternoon.
The Tigers (32-12) jumped on top of the Leopards (27-14-1) early with a nine-run first inning that led to a 16-0 lead after three innings. The two teams combined for 37 total hits, and La Verne scored all nine of its runs in the last five innings.
Kaleb Woodward (San Pedro, Calif. / Palos Verdes Peninsula) and Nicholas Lazzara (Carrollton, Texas / Jesuit College Prep) drove in four runs each to lead the Tiger offense, while Jack Peterson (Round Rock, Texas / Round Rock) went 2-for-4 with two runs scored and three RBI. Woodward and Lazzara had three hits each, though Woodward also scored four times to account for nearly half of Trinity's runs in the game.
Cristian Holloway (Brownsville, Texas / Veterans Memorial) also had three hits in the game, and Ty Preston (Pearland, Texas / Pearland) and Kai Tinker (Simi Valley, Calif. / Grace Brethren) scored three times each. Preston and Colt Harris (Katy, Texas / Houston Christian) both had two hits for the Tigers, with Harris and Maddox McDonald (San Antonio, Texas / Antonian) both scoring twice.
Jackson Teer (San Antonio, Texas / Johnson) left the game after three innings due to the lopsided score, allowing two hits and striking out six batters. Michael Boeke (San Antonio, Texas / Antonian) got the final three outs to snag the win and improve to 3-2 this season.
The Rundown
Teer struck out the side in the first inning to set the table for the offensive outburst. After Woodward was hit by a pitch and Baker bunted him to second, the Tigers collected nine consecutive hits to shock the crowd almost before they could get settled in their seats. All nine Trinity batters got a hit in the inning, as Woodward came back up later in the inning with a two-run double – the only extra-base hit of the frame – and Baker greeted a new La Verne pitcher with his RBI single. Lazzara drove in two runs in the inning as well, picking up a single and a sac fly.
Peterson got the scoring started in the second with an RBI ground ball to the infield that made it 10-0, then Woodward drove in two more with another single. Lazzara then doubled down the left field line on a play that was upheld on review and put the Tigers up 13-0. La Verne made a diving play down the line on the hit by Lazzara, but the fielder couldn't hold on as he went to the ground, and the inning continued.
After Teer fanned two more batters in the top of the third, Trinity was back in the scoring column once again with a three-run third. Peterson doubled in a pair of runs, then Jack Baker (Missouri City, Texas / Ridge Point) also had an RBI double that made it an unbelievable 16-0 game.
La Verne broke up the shutout with back-to-back doubles against Trinity reliever Zach Balbin (San Marino, Calif. / San Marino) in the fifth inning, finishing with a two-run inning that made it 16-2. Trinity was held scoreless in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings, and ULV continued to chip away at the lead. The visitors added two more runs in the sixth to make it 16-4.
Max Milligan (Amarillo, Texas / Amarillo) tripled to score a run in the home half of the seventh to push it to a 17-4 lead, then La Verne scored three more runs on back-to-back doubles in the eighth to make it 17-7. Lazzara got one of those runs back with an RBI single, scoring Woodward, who led off the inning with a double. Two more ninth-inning doubles for La Verne led to two more runs and Boeke came in mid-inning to finish off the game. He hit the first batter he faced to load the bases, then got a groundball for the first out. A wild pitch during the next at-bat deflected hard off the backstop and Lazzara was able to tag the runner out at home. Boeke then wrapped up the Tiger win with a strikeout to put Trinity in control of the series.
Up Next
Trinity and La Verne will play a doubleheader tomorrow, beginning at 11:00 a.m. Game three of the series will begin approximately 45 minutes after the first game ends. The Tigers could close out the series with two wins, while La Verne has to win at least once to extend the series into Sunday.