Box Score Game 1
Box Score Game 2

SALEM, Ore. – Exactly one month after it was originally scheduled, the George Fox University Bruins finally completed their four-game Northwest Conference baseball series with Willamette University by pounding out 35 hits, including 12 doubles and three home runs, to sweep a doubleheader from the Bearcats 15-1 and 16-1 on a chilly Tuesday afternoon here at John Lewis Field.

The Bruins, who are ranked 21st in the latest NCAA Division III national poll by D3baseball.com, took the first two games of the series back on March 13 and 14 by scores of 14-10 and 22-7, but the final two games had been postponed several times due to bad weather.

With the wins, the Bruins moved two games ahead of both Linfield College and Pacific Lutheran University in the conference standings.  George Fox is now 26-7 overall and 21-3 in the NWC, while Linfield is 25-7 overall and 19-5.  PLU, which won 3-2 and 13-0 in a makeup doubleheader at Lewis & Clark College Tuesday, is 23-8 overall and 19-5 in the league.

After two scoreless innings in the opener, the Bruins broke the game open with five runs in the 3rd.  Taylor Hunter led off with a double and Kyle Kuenzi walked off starter Scott Martin (1-1), who was replaced by Blake Paisley.  Matt Wyckoff's bouncer to the right side moved the runners up, and Hunter scored the first run by beating the throw to the plate after third baseman David Tufo had made a nice back-handed diving stop of Bo Thunell's sharp grounder down the line.  Pat Bailey singled in Kuenzi, a walk to Dan Winterstein filled the bases, and Seth Anderson hit a two-run double.  Brent Trask's RBI single capped the frame.

The Bruins added five more in the 4th.  Wyckoff singled in Kuenzi, Bailey singled in Wyckoff, Anderson's sacrifice fly scored Bailey, Winterstein scored on an error at third, and Trask singled home Todd Siler.  Hunter's two-run double and consecutive sacrifice flies by Kuenzi and Wyckoff produced four runs in the 6th, and Perry Knudson doubled and scored on Seth Monson's single for the Bruins' final run in the 7th.

Trask led a 17-hit assault by the Bruins with three hits and two RBIs, while Bailey, Winterstein, Anderson, and Hunter had two hits each.  Anderson had three RBIs, and the Bruins hit seven doubles in the game.  Ellis Webster had two of Willamette's six hits, and Doug Bloom drove in the Bearcats' only run with a solo home run, his first of the season, in the 5th.

Three Bruin pitchers combined to shut down the Bearcats.  Nick Bratney worked three two-hit innings, Chad Jones (4-1) allowed two hits and a walk in one inning but was helped by a 6-4-3 double play and picked up the win, and Kyle Johnson went the final three innings to notch his first save of the season.

The Bruins put up multiple runs in each of the first three innings to take quick control of the nightcap.  In a five-run 1st, Kuenzi reached on an error and scored an unearned run after a throwing error on Bailey's infield single to the hole at short, Winterstein and Jason Brown hit RBI singles around an RBI double by Anderson, and Anderson scored on a double steal with Brown.

Wyckoff singled in Kuenzi and later scored on an error at second in a two-run 2nd, then doubled in Kuenzi to start a four-run 3rd.  Thunell followed with a two-run homer to right and Bailey then hit a solo shot to the same area, the eighth of the year for both.  Kuenzi tripled and scored on Wyckoff's sacrifice fly in the 5th, and Winterstein hit his third home run of the season to left, a solo shot, in the 6th.  The Bruins closed out their scoring with three in 7th on an RBI double by Winterstein and a two-run double by Michael Woo.

Winterstein had four hits, scored three runs, and drove in three in sparking the Bruins' 18-hit attack.  Keunzi, Wyckoff, Thunell, Bailey and Brown had two hits each, Kuenzi tripling and scoring four times and Thunell knocking in three.  Adam Reid and Michael Rierson had two hits apiece out of the Bearcats' total of seven safeties.

Bruin righthanders Shane Dalgleish and Travis Schroeder (5-2) worked three shutout innings apiece, Dalgleish scattering three hits and Schroeder two.  Adam Weber finished up and allowed the Bearcats' lone run on a single by Reid, a double by Ross Knutsen, and a wild pitch.  Devin Grindy (3-5) started and took the loss for the Bearcats, surrendering 11 hits and 11 runs, nine earned, in 2.2 innings.

George Fox's next scheduled game, at Western Oregon University on Wednesday, has been postponed indefinitely; both teams had conference makeup games that needed to be played this week.  The Bruins' next games, therefore, will be Saturday at the University of Puget Sound, a conference twinbill starting at 12:00 noon.  Willamette (15-15, NWC 12-11) will visit Linfield Saturday for an NWC pair at 12:00 noon.