Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
WHITTIER, Calif. – On a day where the Poets were taking on the Tigers of Occidental College in a plethora of sports the Whittier College baseball team added to the two other Poet victories on the day and handed the Tigers a 4-1 loss as senior Ryan Schwenn again amazed the fans in attendance pitching his second straight complete game.
Whittier now improves to 14-15, 8-11 SCIAC, while Occidental drops to 17-13, 12-7.
The Poets who came into today's contest in sixth place in SCIAC acted as spoilers for the Tigers who are in third and a game up on the Sagehens of Pomona-Pitzer.
A week after he pitched his first career no hitter against No. 25 La Verne, Schwenn again took to the mound and pitched another complete game giving up one run on five hits to go with eight strikeouts earning him his seventh win of the season putting him atop the SCIAC rankings in wins by himself.
Whittier combined for 11 hits against Occidental's ace Eyrich who now drops to 5-4 on the season as he went 4.0 innings giving up four runs on nine hits. The Purple & Gold jumped out in front in the first inning putting two runs across the plate led off by an Andrew Vallejo single up the middle. He was later driven in by Cory Goodchild who doubled to left center and he then advanced to third after Nick Amicone drove a single through the right side on a beautifully executed hit and run called by head coach Mike Rizzo. Austin Straus then came up and hit a deep fly to centerfield that drove in Goodchild and with runners in scoring position Tyler Bogart struck out ending the Poet rally.
In the third, Occidental strung together a couple hits putting across their lone run of the game to cut the Poet lead to one but that's all Schwenn would give up as he sat the Tiger batters down over the next six innings.
But the Poet bats continued to hit as they added another two runs in the ensuing inning extending their lead to 4-1 and a lead they would not relinquish. Whittier used back to back to back singles from Josh Genzuk, Alex Mitchell, and Vallejo that pushed two runs across the plate giving Schwenn cushion he didn't need.
Vallejo continues to swing a hot bat as he finished 3-4 with a run scored and one RBI moving his batting average to .445 maintaining his lead in the SCIAC rankings.
Senior Pete Mitchell also swung a strong bat as he finished 2-4, while Goodchild finished 1-4 with a run and an RBI in his fourth game back from his wrist injury.
Whittier wraps up their three game series with Occidental tomorrow, Saturday, April 7 as they travel to Oxy to take on the Tigers in a doubleheader with games slated to begin at 11am and 2:30pm.
