LOS ANGELES – The
Whittier College baseball team was held to three hits in the first
game and lost Game 2 in the bottom of the 10th as Occidental earned
the series sweep of the Poets with a 3-0 and 6-5 win on Saturday
afternoon at Anderson Field.
The Poets
(7-26, 4-17 SCIAC) tied things at 5-5 in the top of the eighth of
the second game to send the outing to extra frames. Reed
Tuttle led off with a single and moved to second on a
sacrifice bunt by Andrew Vallejo. He scored one
batter later on an RBI-single by David
Tucci.
Whittier
left two runners on in the ninth and went down in order in the 10th
which set up Occidental's final at bat. A leadoff single
started the Tigers' inning. OXY had a runner on third with
one-out after a steal of second and a sacrifice bunt. Two
intentional walks later and the bases were full of Tigers with one
out.
Occidental
came through with an RBI-sacrifice fly to right field to end the
game.
WC went
through four arms and it was Casey Serna who
suffered the loss as he pitched the 10th frame. Andrew
Pigott and Alex Gast threw well in relief
as they combined for 4.1 innings of shutout ball. They each allowed
three hits and struck out one batter apiece.
Darby Weppner had a
three-RBI, three-hit, outing while Tuttle and Tucci finished with
two hits each.
The bats
of Whittier were silenced in the first game. Occidental used one
pitcher who struck out six and scattered just three hits.
Weppner
singled in the first inning, Jacob Storrer hit a
double in the fourth and Ian Bablewski had a
single in the seventh. The Poets only had two runners reach scoring
position. Bablewski's single moved Vallejo to third while
Storrer got stranded at second after his double in the
fourth.
Keith Hoefel threw well
but suffered the loss. He went 6.1 innings, allowed two runs (one
earned) on seven hits with a pair of K's. Mike
Rueda threw 1.2 innings out of the pen and gave up one hit
and one run.
Whittier
returns to action on Friday, April 16, as they face Pomona-Pitzer
in a single game at 3 pm in Claremont.
