Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
WHITTIER, Calif. – The Whittier College baseball team used three long balls Friday afternoon to edge the Tigers of Occidental College 7-5 to open the three game series.
With the win Whittier improves to 15-8, 11-2 SCIAC, while Occidental drops to 11-13, 7-6 SCIAC.
After a scoreless first Occidental would strike for two in the top half of the second following a Chris Strain two run bomb. Whittier would get one back in the bottom of the third when Julian Barzilli plated one to straight away center for his SCIAC leading ninth homerun of the season.
Oxy would add to their lead in the fifth but would soon relinquish the lead in the bottom half of the inning behind two three run jacks from Stephen Zavala and Cody Martinez that opened the game up 7-3.
In the ninth Oxy put together a rally and managed to bring two runs across with Johnathan Brooks and Riley Smith singles that moved the score to 7-5 but Ben Cerami was able to induce a fly out from A.J. Libunao that secured the victory and his third save of the season.
Nick Garcia earned his fourth win of the season going 6.2 innings giving up two runs on eight hits, while striking out four. Joseph Kling was charged with the loss after surrendering seven runs on six hits.
Martinez finished 2-4 with a run scored and three RBI's, while Zavala was 1-3 with a run scored and three runs batted in.
Whittier wraps up their three game series tomorrow, Saturday, March 29 against Occidental on the road with games set for 11:00am and 2:30pm.
