Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

WHITTIER, Calif. – Sophomore Samantha Blum (San Jose, Calif.) lifted the Whittier College softball team to a sweep over Claremont-M-SFriday afternoon at Palmer Field in a SCIAC showdown that had first place implications on the line.

Going into the match-up the Poets had a two game lead on the Athena's and sat in first place in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Standings (SCIAC).  After the sweep the Poets improve to 20-10, 14-4 SCIAC and currently hold a three game lead on Cal Lutheran University who has now moved up into second place in the standings.

Following the sweep, Blum found herself picking up two wins improving to 15-3 on the season, which leads SCIAC.  She also moves up to No. 4 All-Time in the Whittier College softball record books in single season victories surpassing Vicki Ovieda who finished with 14 back in 2007.  Kathy Rodrigues (1986) is now the lone Poet ahead of Blum and holds the record for most wins in a season at 18 and currently holds the second most at 17.      

Game 1 (Whittier – 4, Claremont-M-S – 1)

The Athena's threatened in the first inning getting bases loaded and one out, but Blum was able to strand all three getting Elaine Wang to pop-up to third and Melanie Carlson to groundout.  The game remained scoreless over the next two innings until Whittier added a pair in the bottom half of the fourth off the bat of Alyse Gutierrez (West Covina, Calif.) who crushed her seventh homerun of the season to left field.

CMS got one back in the top half of the fifth with a solo shot from Alexa Heydenbark but the Poets bounced back in the bottom half of the inning to bring across another two behind a double from Alexandra Flores (Santa Fe Springs, Calif.),a single from Emi Shimamoto (Santa Clarita, Calif.) and a groundout from Samantha Mellano (Fullerton, Calif.). 

Blum then stepped up over the final two innings and retired the final six batters en route to the victory.  For the game she gave up one run on four hits.  Marialena Ahern (Fremont, Calif.) finished 2-3 on the day with a run scored and Gutierrez was 1-2 with a run scored and two runs batted in.               

Game 2 (Whittier – 8, Claremont-M-S – 4)

The Poet bats remained hot in game two.  They got out of the gates quickly with three runs in the bottom half of the first with a solo homer from Mellano followed by a two run blast opposite field by Ahern. 

Briana Halle would send one out to left center the very next inning to put CMS on the board but WC would answer in the bottom half capitalizing on an error by the third baseman as Kamila Auls (Long Beach, Calif.) would come in and score from third.

The Athena's got after Rachel Alhanati (Lake Forest, Calif.) in the third plating three runs on three hits, which included back to back doubles from Mikayla O'Neal and Halle but that would be the final runs scored as Blum would come in to toss the final 4.2 innings giving up no runs and just one hit.

In the fourth the Poets would take the lead for good once again bringing across another three runs sparked by back to back doubles from Shimamoto and Mellano.  Leading 7-4, Whittier would add an insurance run in the sixth.  Mellano and Mercedez Cundiff (Rowland, Calif.) led off the inning with walks.  Ahern sacrificed them both over and freshman Kellen Hitzel (Corona, Calif.) would drive in the run with a single to right.

Mellano finished the game 2-3 with a run scored and three runs batted in and Ahern was 1-1 with a run scored and two RBI's and two walks.

Whittier wraps up their tough weekend match-ups with a doubleheader today, Saturday, April 11 on the road against the University of Redlands with game times set for 12:00pm and 2:00pm.