Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – The Whittier College men's baseball team opened up their series against the Cal Lutheran Kingsmen with a 3-1 loss behind what turned out to be a pitcher's duel.
The Poets drop to 8-6, 4-3 SCIAC, while the Kingsmen improve to 9-4, 5-2 SCIAC.
Whittier's Ryan Schwenn was tagged with the loss after he went 6.0 innings giving up two earned runs on seven hits to go along with six strikeouts.
Cal Lutheran's Byron Minnich pitched a complete game giving up an unearned run on four hits to go with nine strikeouts.
After a scoreless first that had the Poets threatening with a runner in scoring position, the Kingsmen went ahead and added the first runs of the game in the second behind a two out rally that put them up 2-0.
The Kingsmen added an insurance run in the 4th on a wild pitch from Schwenn that brought in Vinyard from third.
Minnich then held the Poets scoreless over the next five innings until the Purple & Gold cut the deficit to two in the 7th. Daniel Vidales reached on an error by the second baseman and then advanced to second. He then moved to third on a wild pitch and was then driven in by a sacrifice by Josh Genzuk. Then with Tyler Bogart on third Andrew Vallejo stepped up and drove a ball to the second baseman that cut the Poet rally short.
Over the next two innings of work Whittier was shut down in order managing just one single from Pete Mitchell who got one of four hits on the day for the Poets. His younger brother Alex Mitchell also tacked on two hits but it wasn't enough as the Poets were unable to come from behind late to get the win.
The Poets are in action tomorrow as they take part in the second day of the series as they host the Kingsmen of Cal Lutheran for a doubleheader with game times slated for 11am and 2:30pm.
