Katelyn McLean | Sports Editor
Whitworth baseball played its longest game in program history—16 innings over the course of two days.
The game began as a second game of a doubleheader on Saturday, April 9. The game was postponed after the 13th inning due to darkness and resumed on Sunday morning in the top of the 14th inning.
“Sometimes when you’re in games that are that long, you’re kind of just reacting to what the game is giving you and you don’t really take a lot of time to think about what is going on, so when you have a night to sleep on it, that can sometimes change how you go into the next day and what you want to do,” head coach CJ Perry said.
Whitworth took the lead in the first inning, but Puget Sound scored all of its ten runs in the next six innings. The Pirates scored five runs in the fifth inning and then added a run in the seventh to tie the game at ten.
Relief pitcher Hunter Williams and the Whitworth defense kept the game tied at ten until the bottom of the 16th inning.
“Hunter’s ability to keep those innings really short and really fast just kept us going to be honest with you,” Perry said.
Williams pitched seven innings until the postponement after the 13th.
In the bottom of the 16th inning, Hunter Dryden hit a single that drove home Brendan Duncan to end the game 11-10.
“It’s really just another at-bat. You just have to find a way on and find a way to make something happen,” Dryden said. “I feel like…I had a chance in the first inning of the day, I kind of felt like I was trying to do too much. When I got that second chance, I knew I needed to get the job done.”
After Duncan touched home plate, the team ran out to meet him and celebrate, throwing batting helmets and rushing the field.
“That was crazy. I’ve never really experienced that before ever, in my life,” Dryden said. “You know, you watch it on TV. You see it in all the highlights on SportsCenter, but it was kind of crazy just to see the whole team rushing out of the dugout running toward me. I didn’t really know what to do.”
The Pirates lost the last game of the series later that day, finishing 1-3 over the weekend, but the victory in the longest game played by the Whitworth Baseball program still stands.