by John Ekberg
Whitworth’s baseball team opened up conference play with a bang. Rather, they came out swinging. And swinging. And swinging some more. The Pirates took both ends of the Saturday doubleheader from Whitman, but failed to complete the sweep by losing the final game on Sunday afternoon.
Coming off a weekend where the Pirates put up 47 runs in four games in Kerrville, Texas, Whitworth continued its scoring ways against Northwest Conference opponent Whitman College in a big way.
In the front-end of a Saturday doubleheader, Whitworth senior Dan Scheibe stole the show from the pitcher’s mound, notching 10 strikeouts in seven innings of work while allowing a single run, on a solo home run, on five hits.
Senior Carson Blumenthal relieved Scheibe after seven innings, but continued the dominating performance, striking out three Missionaries while not allowing a hit over the final two innings.
The Pirates’ took the first game from the Missionaries, 8-1.
“The offense’s job is easier when you have a guy competing on the mound,” freshman infielder Joel Condreay said.
As nice as it is for an offense to compete when a pitcher is dominating on the mound, it is just as simple for a pitcher to compete when your offense is dominating at the plate. That’s exactly what happened in the back-end of the doubleheader on Saturday afternoon, and it was led by Condreay.
Not 5. Not 10. Not 20. Whitworth tallied 29 runs in this baseball game, a Whitworth Pirates baseball all-time record. The Pirates racked up 11 extra-base hits in the game, 10 of which were of the two-bag variety. Three of those doubles belonged to Condreay, who finished the game 6-6 (with a walk as well) with 5 RBIs.
Whitworth finished the game 31-for-55 at the dish, a scorching .564 batting average. The game ended with the Pirates winning 29-6.
“The most impressive thing was that every time our defense allowed a few runs, our line-up punched back twice as hard,” senior pitcher Nick Scourey, the starting pitcher in the second game, said.
Whitworth committed four errors in the first two innings with Scourey on the mound, yet only allowed a pair of runs in those innings.
“Our defense could have been better. Today was a step in the right direction, but as a whole, we aren’t where we need to be yet,” Condreay said.
The Pirates were unable to come away with the sweep, falling to the Missionaries 5-2 in the final game of the three-game set on Sunday afternoon. “We let one slip today, but learned a lot of valuable lessons,” senior pitcher Cory Mack said.
“It says something about the expectations for our program when you take two of three games in a weekend, and you’re left wanting more,” head coach Dan Ramsay said. “Even if we win every game, and don’t allow any runs the entire weekend, we’re always going to find something we can improve on.”
Whitworth heads to Ellensburg, Washington for a double-header against Central Washington on Wednesday this week before hosting George Fox at Merkel Field for the first home Northwest Conference games of the season this weekend.