The Whitworth baseball team put another three games in the bag last weekend coming out with two losses on Saturday and a high-scoring win on Sunday.
Sunday afternoon the Bucs put two runs on the board right away in the bottom of the first inning. Willamette came back in the top of the second inning with two runs and putting them to hold a one-run lead.
Neither team was able to chalk up another run until the bottom of the sixth inning when Whitworth put up one run after junior left fielder Tyler Pfeffer scored on a throwing error by Willamette, tying the game 3-3.
“I thought there some definite positive take always from this weekend,” head coach Dan Ramsay said. “We played great defensively both Saturday and Sunday. We just failed to cash in with runners in scoring position multiple times on Saturday.”
Sophomore Dan Scheibe pitch seven innings for the Bucs in game one and had six strikeouts. Sophomore Spencer Ansett took the mound for the final two innings.
In the top of the ninth Willamette claimed a two-run lead with two RBIs and won the game 5-3 Saturday afternoon.
“We have been a very inconsistent team this entire season and it’s mostly due to the fact that we never found our rhythm as a team,” sophomore center fielder Eric Nikssarian said. “Something we have been consistent at is our defense though.”
Game two on Saturday went for ten innings and Willamette was off to a good start right away scoring two in the top of the first. Again, Willamette scored another run in the top of the third and leading the game 3-0.
“I’m not satisfied[with the teams performance], my expectation for this group was much higher, so it’s clear that this season has been a disappointment,” Ramsay said. “However, I’m confident moving forward that we will grow from our experience this season.”
In the bottom of the fifth and sixth innings the Bucs responded with two more runs, but it they were still trailed by two.
The Pirates were able to tie up the game in the bottom of the ninth forcing the game into extra innings. In the bottom of the tenth Willamette dropped three RBIs and lead by three winning the game 9-6.
“We challenged the guys on Saturday following our games to treat the rest of our games as a 7-game season,” Ramsay said. “They responded well on Sunday with the win, hopefully we can continue with that play.”
Sunday afternoon sophomore Carson Blumenthal started on the mound and threw a complete game for the Pirates. In pitching the shutout, Blumenthal earned his fourth win of the year.
“We got a fantastic pitching performance from Carson Blumenthal who was great with two strikes, minimized walks, and came up with clutch outs in big time situations to get the complete game shutout,” Nikssarian said.
Willamette used five different pitchers on Sunday in a high-scoring game.
Whitworth scored four runs in the bottom of the first inning and three of those were RBIs by freshman right fielder Blake Thoren after he doubled out to left field.
“After seeing sporadic time throughout the year, Blake Thoren played extremely well in all three of his starts this weekend both offensively and defensively,” Ramsay said.
Whitworth put up another two runs in the bottom of the second inning and continued scoring runs in every inning preceding the end of the game. Freshman third baseman Jeremy Druffel and junior second baseman each had three RBIs for the Pirates as well.
“On Saturday our offense didn’t do as well as we would have liked, but today[Sunday] we fired on all cylinders and we scored more runs consistently than we have all year,” Blumenthal said.
Whitworth executed on Sunday, keeping Willamette scoreless and won the game 15-0, Whitworth’s highest scoring game of the year.
Whitworth will be playing its next three games in Walla Walla, Wash. against Whitman on April 27 and 28.
“Today [Sunday] we really found what it feels like to win again,” Blumenthal said. “I think the feeling that it brought will inspire guys to work harder than they have all year, even harder than we already do.”
