Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The Whittier baseball team held off a late ninth inning surge to hold off the Tigers of Occidental College 5-2 Friday afternoon. 

Austin Straus earned the win behind 6.0 innings of work.  He allowed one run on four hits to go with five strikeouts and moved his record to 1-2 on the season. 

Mike Rueda came in and shut down the Tiger offense as he threw 3.0 innings giving up one run on two hits picking up his first save of the season.

The Poets (14-16, 6-13 SCIAC) collected six hits on the day and got on the scoreboard in the top of the fourth.  Reed Tuttle singled up the middle and Alex Gast and Dan Gleiberman followed with base on balls and Darby Weppner drove in Tuttle and Gast to put the Poets up 2-1.

Gleiberman then came up with nobody on in the top of the sixth and blasted a solo shot his third of the season to left center putting the Poets up 3-1.

The Poets added some insurance in the seventh as Andrew Vallejo got on with a single and then stole second.  He was then driven in by Tuttle who went 3-4 on the day with a run scored and an RBI.    

The Tigers put up a run in the bottom of the ninth to make the score 5-2 and were threatening but that's as close as they would get as the Poets hung on for the win.

Whittier and Occidental will conclude their three game series tomorrow with games scheduled for 11 am and 2:30 pm at Memorial Field.