SPOKANE, Wash. – Keeping the Northwest Conference baseball race tighter than a drum, the Whitworth University Pirates salvaged the finale of their three-game series with the visiting George Fox University Bruins with a 4-1 win behind the stellar pitching of C.J. Perry and Dan Scheibe Sunday afternoon here at Merkel Field.
George Fox is now 14-13 overall and 10-5 in the conference, while Whitworth is 14-9-1 overall and 8-4 in the league. With Pacific University at 8-2 in the NWC, Pacific Lutheran University at 9-3, and Linfield College at 12-5, five teams are bunched within one-and-a-half games of each other at the top of the standings, based on games-over-.500.
After Perry (3-1) gave up an unearned run in the top of the 1st, he and Scheibe combined to keep George Fox off the scoreboard the rest of the way. Perry went five innings, allowing no earned runs on only three hits with two strikeouts. Scheibe picked up his second save of the season by tossing the final four innings and holding the Bruins scoreless on four hits, striking out four. The Pirates' duo walked none.
David Greenstein led off the game with a wind-blown double to center, was sacrificed to third, and scored when Josh Rapacz's liner to second was booted for an error. Perry induced Danny Clifford to ground into a double play to avoid any more damage in the inning.
Whitworth tied the game in the 3rd after Erik Nikssarian got to first on a strikeout and wild pitch with one out. A ground out moved him to second, and he went to third on a passed ball. After a walk to Nick Motsinger, the Pirates pulled of a double steal to knot the game.
Joshua Davis singled home Landon Scott with the go-ahead run in the 4th, and Scott singled home Gerhard Muelheims in the 5th to make it 3-1. Whitworth scored its final run in the 7th when Tyler Pfeffer came home on Preston Van Doren's squeeze bunt.
Tom Zarosinski (1-4) pitched well for five innings for the Bruins but took the loss, allowing three runs, two earned, on only three hits with four strikeouts and three walks. Eric Kittelson pitched a scoreless 6th, and Clay Gartner gave up one run over the final two innings.
Greenstein, Timothy Williams, and Derek Dixon each had two hits for the Bruins. Davis collected half the Pirates' hits with three, and Scott had two safeties/
NEXT: George Fox hosts the University of Puget Sound for a three-game NWC series next weekend, with a doubleheader on Friday and a single game on Saturday starting at 12:00 noon both days. The site of the series has not been determined yet; the Bruins' Morse Field is still waterlogged in the outfield and probably unplayable for the rest of the season ... Whitworth has a non-conference game at NAIA powerhouse Lewis-Clark State College on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m.