REDLANDS, Calif. – The University of Redlands baseball team (13-12, 5-8) defeated Chapman University, 8-7, on Thursday afternoon at The Yard as they held off three late Panther rallies.
The offense started out on fire as Luke De Vries and Jared Anderson each singled to center. Following a sacrifice bunt by Tyler Preece, Sebastian Mejorado singled through the right side to score De Vries. Nathan Miller then beat out a potential double play as he allowed Anderson to score for a 2-0 lead.
Over the next four inning the offense was held at bay, but starter Tyler Reiter allowed only two hits as he maintained the 2-0 lead after five innings.
Chapman, however, would score three times on five hits in the sixth inning as they took the lead, 3-2. Reiter would finish off the inning with a fly out that stranded two more potential runs.
After four scoreless innings from the batters, they would pick up Reiter with three runs as Preece doubled home Anderson to tie the game at three before Jake Burgess came up big with a two-out RBI-single that reclaimed the lead 5-3.
The Panthers got one of the runs back in the seventh before Preece got two more RBI in the bottom half of the inning as De Vries and Will Cell scored after reaching on lead off singles. Miller would then get another two-out RBI for the Bulldogs as he doubled home Preece for what felt like a comfortable 8-4 lead.
Though, much like in the sixth, Chapman scored three times on four hits in the eighth to draw within two. Reliever Patrick Perez came on and was able to strand the tying and lead runs.
Redlands would not add any insurance runs in the eighth, but in the ninth Perez secured the win as Kaiya Saito threw out the tying runner trying to steal second before finishing with a strikeout and ground out.
The top five in the order, De Vries, Anderson, Preece, Mejorado, and Miller, combined to go 8-for-17 with seven runs scored and six RBI. Burgess added two hits and two RBI from his seventh spot.
Reiter finished with three runs on eight hits with three strikeouts across six innings as he got his sixth win of the season. Perez threw the final 1.1 innings with no runs and a strikeout on only 16 pitches as he got his second save.
Redlands travels to Chapman tomorrow with game one of the doubleheader at 2:00 p.m. as they look for at least a split to win the series.