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| Whitworth picked up its first win of the 2023 season by holding off La Verne 5-3 at Ben Hines Field on Sunday afternoon. Whitworth athletics photo |
George Fox was playing their fourth game in three days on Sunday, after dropping three to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps to start a California swing. No. 7-ranked Chapman was playing their first game of the season. The Bruins responded from their losses the day prior, taking down the Panthers, 4-1, to pick up their first win of the season.
After a 1-2-3 inning from both the Bruins and the Panthers, Fox locked in. SCIAC Pitcher of the Year Wyatt Thompson made it only three innings against the Bruin bats, as Fox extended their lead to 3-0.
Ben Wills pitched excellently for the Bruins in his first start of the year, only allowing a single base runner in the first four innings. Chapman scored one run in the fifth off of Wills to inch closer, but Fox locked down with a quick putout.
After a scoreless sixth inning, Bleu Ellis delivered the knockout punch, slamming a ball deep for the Bruins' first home run of the day to give Fox a three-run lead. Alex Abbott and Noah Meffert finished out the day, with Meffert picking up the save in the Bruins' 4-1 upset win over the No. 7 Panthers.
Lewis & Clark cruised to an 11-0 lead over host Whittier College and closed out opening weekend 4-0 in Southern California. Three Pioneers hit home runs, and six Pios finished with multiple hits in the 22-7 victory over the Poets.
Junior Luke Bass earned his first RBI of the day with a double to right center in the first, and sophomore Brennen Davis scored the first of his team-high five runs on the play.
Senior Jack Thomson became the third Pioneer to record 100 career base on balls when he was walked on his second at-bat in the third. After that, the bats came alive for Lewis & Clark in the inning with ten runs on seven hits and the rout was on
Senior Kris Wuelfing earned the win from the mound after replacing starting pitcher, sophomore Kyle Wilsie, at the bottom of the fourth inning. Wilsie gave up four runs in three innings, and Wuelfing gave up the remaining three Poet runs in two innings.
Dylan Joyce's fourth home run in as many games was a grand slam as Puget Sound finished its four-game California trip with an 11-5 win at Occidental Sunday. The Loggers are 4-0 to start the season.
For the third consecutive game, Puget Sound scored in the top of the first. Occidental tied the game in the second inning, but Puget Sound put two more runs on the board in the third inning.
The Loggers began to pull away in the fifth inning when they scored three runs and iced the game with Joyce's grand slam in the sixth inning.
Puget Sound used eight different pitchers, and they combined to allow just three earned runs. Henry Baker was the nominal starter and he pitched the first two innings. Bennett Allen earned his first-career victory.
Whitworth picked up its first win of the 2023 season by holding off La Verne 5-3 at Ben Hines Field on Sunday afternoon.
Hunter Dryden threw five shutout innings for the Bucs, while Zach Tincher and Elijah Tanner each drove in a pair of RBIs.
Tincher's RBI single in the top of the fourth inning drove in Dawson Warner with the game's first run. He added a sacrifice fly in the top of the sixth to score Austin Paul. Blake Barrett followed Tincher with a single through the right side of the infield that scored Riley Cissne for a 3-0 lead. Tanner seemed to ice the game in the top of the eighth with a two-run triple with two outs.
Hunter Williams threw the final four innings to earn his first save of 2023. He survived La Verne's three-run rally in the ninth, which included two Pirate errors that led to a pair of unearned runs. He got the final Leopard batter to pop up as the potential tying run.
Texas Lutheran held off a late inning Pacific rally for a 7-6 win over the Boxers at Katt-Isbel Field. The Bulldogs (2-1) scored four runs in the fifth inning to break the game open to a 7-2 lead. The Boxers would score four runs over the final four innings but TLU would prevent a complete Boxers comeback to complete the series win over the 2022 Northwest Conference champions.
Zach Longshore made his first start of the 2023 campaign, pitching four innings with eight strikeouts, allowing just one run on five hits to pick up his first win of the season. Blade Strzelczyk picked up the save, his second of the season, allowing one run on one hit and striking out two. With the save, Strzelczyk moved into second all-time in SCAC history with 15 career saves. As a staff, TLU struck out 17 batters for the second time in three games and struck out an impressive 45 batters in total on the weekend.
Asher Bonnell went 2-for-4 with a solo homer - the first of his collegiate career - while Tyler Post went 2-for-5 with a double and two RBI and Holden Philippus was 2-for-4 with a double, one RBI and two runs scored.
Redlands (2-2) avoided the three-game series sweep against Willamette The Yard thanks to a dominant six-inning start from Nathan Buchan with a 7-1 win.
The game did not start on the right foot for the lefty Buchan, as he allowed a leadoff double to the Bearcats leadoff hitter. He would come around and score after tagging up on a flyout to center and the tagged and scored on a sacrifice fly to left field.
That run would be the only bump in the road as the offense got three runs back in the bottom half of the first thanks to RBI-singles from Jared Anderson and Jake Burgess.
In the third the Bulldogs made their lead a comfortable six runs thanks to a solo home run from Clark and a two-run single to left from Will Cell. For Clark, it was his first home run of the season and his 17th of his career.
Omar Barraza came on in the ninth for his first pitching appearance of the season as he struck out one Bearcat in a quick seventh and final inning. As a whole, Buchan and Barraza held the Bearcats to three hits and only walked one while the offense had nine hits.