by Sasha Siclait
The Whitworth baseball team played its final games of the season last weekend in Lewiston, Idaho and ended the season with 14 wins. Saturday afternoon Whitworth played Pacific Lutheran and won 6-0 while Sunday Whitworth lost 14-5 against Linfield and 20-9 against Lewis-Clark St.
Sophomore Dan Scheibe started against Pacific Lutheran for the Bucs and went seven innings with seven strikeouts. Pacific Lutheran only managed to get two hits and weren’t able to put any runs up on the board. The Bucs generated eight hits in the game.
“Dan Scheibe, Taylor Isadore and Jason Renner pitched very well in game 1 against PLU, giving our team our second shutout win of the season,” sophomore Carson Blumenthal said.
Whitworth opened up the scoring with two unearned runs in the top of the third inning. The Bucs scored another run in the top of the fourth inning and with an RBI by sophomore Eric Nikssarian putting the Pirates in a 3-0 lead.
The fifth and sixth innings had two hits but no scoring. In the top of the eighth inning though, senior designated hitter Marlowe Peter put up two more runs for the Bucs and Whitworth won the game 6-0.
Sunday afternoon the Bucs took on first-place Linfield. Linfield scored two runs in the first inning and continued to score consecutively in the next three innings. But in the bottom of the fourth inning the Pirates were able to put two runs on the board. In the top of the sixth the Bucs were able to hold Linfield for an inning, while in the bottom of the sixth the Pirates scored three more runs and trailed 11-5.
“We hit really well this weekend and Gerhard Mulheims and Jeremy Druffel had an awesome weekend offensively which was great,” Nikssarian said. “I thought Danny Jordan and Nick Motsinger hit the ball well too. Our hitting was definitely our high point.”
In the top of the sixth, Linfield scored another run and held Whitworth for the rest of the game and won 14-5.
“This weekend was good and we played two good teams,” Nikssarian said. “We beat PLU with great pitching and showed that we still had some fight left, mostly we just wanted to have fun playing baseball.”
The second game on Sunday was a high-scoring game for both teams and a big hitting a game as well. Whitworth had a total of 15 hits and Lewis-Clark St. had 20 hits in the game.
In the top of the first inning, Whitworth scored two runs, but Lewis-Clark State put up seven runs leaving Whitworth with a large deficit from the start.
Whitworth didn’t end up scoring their second round of runs until the top of the fourth inning two of those being RBIs by sophomore shortstop Nick Motsinger.
“Our offense produced consistently and we did not give up in any of the games we played,” Blumenthal said. “It was a consistent effort all weekend.”
In the top of the fifth inning the Bucs scored another three runs, but Lewis-Clark state held their lead for the rest of the game and won 20-9.
Multiple players commented on their disappointment of the season, as they expected that they would have had the opportunity to play postseason baseball.
“This season had a lot ups and downs, but I would say that I’m a little disappointed with our performance and I think this season was a lesson and a wake up call and I think this season taught us how to lose,” Nikssarian said. “Losing is not fun, and when you lose more than you win it makes winning that much sweeter.”
Whitworth ended the season with a 14-25-1 record.
Contact Sasha Siclait at ssiclait16@my.whitworth.edu