Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

IRVINE, Calif. – The Whittier College baseball team got their 2014 season underway Tuesday afternoon in Irvine as they dropped a tight 7-5 contest with the Eagles of Concordia University who came into the game ranked No. 9 in the National NAIA Polls.

Senior Julian Barzilli (Los Angeles, Calif.) returned to his usual form finishing the day 3-4 with all five runs batted in thanks to a 7^th inning grand slam that tied the game up at five.

After being held scoreless for the first five innings of play and seeing Concordia lead 5-0 the Purple & Gold bounced back to add a run in the 6^th and four in the 7^th before seeing the Eagles add insurance runs in the 7^th and 8^th to secure the two run victory.

Whittier came out hot in the top of the 1^st with back to back base hits from Corey Jensen (Blairstown, NJ) and freshman Graham Pimm (Clayton, Calif.) but the ensuing three batters would get out stranding the pair in scoring position. 

The Poets had another opportunity to get on the board in the Top of the 5^th when junior Chris Sekiguchi (Aiea, HI) lined a doubled down the right field line to start things off, but again he was unable to come around to score.

In the 6^th however the Poets would respond.  Stephen Zavala (Whittier, Calif.) led things off getting hit by a pitch and then moved all the way over to third after a wild pickoff attempt went down the right field line.  Barzilli then came up and singled to left that brought in Zavala putting the Poets on the board for the first time.

But the Poets weren't done there.  After a pitching change that brought in Jacob Murray in the 7^th Whittier would tack on another four runs coming on two outs.  Jensen started things off with a single up the middle and then stole second.  Pimm then singled to third base advancing Jensen to third, and was then followed by Zavala who drew a base on balls.  Then with bases loaded, Barzilli came up and sent one deep to left clearing the bases for his biggest home run of his collegiate career.

Concordia would respond though in the bottom half of the inning thanks to Nolan Clark who squeezed one through the right side bringing home Robert Shiroky for the go ahead run.  They would then add another in the 8^th with a sacrifice fly to right from Spencer Nielson before Jake Ham would come in to close out the game in the 9^th putting the Poets down in order to secure the save. 

Senior Curtis Martin (Honolulu, HI) got the start and went five innings strong giving up three earned runs on seven hits.  He was relieved by Nick Garcia (Anaheim, Calif.) who got tagged with the loss after giving up two runs on two hits.

Jacob Murray earned the victory on the afternoon and is now 1-0 despite giving up the grand slaw and four hits.  Ham picked up his first save of the season.

Whittier returns to the diamond this weekend down in Arizona when they take part in the Arizona Desert Classic from February 7-9.  Schedule of games include: