NEWBERG, Ore. – Dan Winterstein drilled two doubles and a home run, scoring three runs and driving in three, and Josh Burch had four RBIs, including a three-run homer, as the George Fox University Bruins completed a three-game Northwest Conference baseball series sweep of the Whitman College Missionaries with a 13 -4 victory Sunday here at Morse Field.

The game had been moved ahead one hour to an 11:00 a.m. start, and the shift paid off as rain moved in shortly up completion of the almost-three-hours-long ballgame.

Chad Jones, normally the Bruins' closer, got the start for George Fox but struggled in that role, allowing five hits and three earned runs in 3.0 innings, with two strikeouts and two walks.  He gave up four hits in the 1st, including a two-run homer to Eric Tolleson, which was his third of the season, and balked in a run in the 3rd after allowing two lead-off walks. 

Adam Weber (2-0) came in to work four middle innings, allowing seven hits but only one run while fanning five and walking one.  Travis Schroeder finished the game with two innings of one-hit shutout ball.

Meanwhile, the Bruin bats, as they had in the first two games of the series in which George Fox had out-scored Whitman 44-5, went to work on Blaine Mercado (1-6), who surrendered 14 hits and 11 runs, seven earned, in 7.0 innings of work.  He fanned three and walked three.

Burch reached on an error at short to lead off the bottom of the 1st, opening the door to four unearned runs.  Jason Brown had an RBI ground out, and Brent Trask and Eric Gantenbein had RBI singles around a run-scoring double by Winterstein.  

The Bruins made it 6-3 with a pair in the 3rd, Brown and Winterstein hitting doubles for one run and Winterstein scoring on Gantenbein's single to left.  Winterstein added his first home run of the season, a solo shot to left, in the 5th.

After Whitman got a run off Weber in the 7th on singles by Erik Korsmo, Mercado, and Jason Sease, George Fox blew the game open with four in the 7th and two more in the 8th.  Burch slugged his fourth home run of the season following singles by Perry Knudson and Nate Hickok in the 7th, and Brown later singled in Sam Stahl.  In the 8th, Hickok had an RBI single and Burch a sacrifice fly.

Winterstein, Brown, and Gantenbein all had three hits for the Bruins, Brown with two doubles and two RBIs, and Gantenbein with a double and two RBIs.  Stahl, Knudson, and Hickok also had two hits each. 

Whitman had 13 hits, with Tolleson, Korsmo, Mercado, Sease, and Mitch Hannoosh collecting two each.  Tolleson had two RBIs and two runs scored.

George Fox (15-9, NWC 8-4), with five wins in a row, heads for Spokane, Wash., and a three-game conference series next weekend, starting with a doubleheader on Friday at 12:00 noon.  Whitman (3-20, NWC 3-9) hosts Pacific Lutheran University in an NWC series, also playing a twinbill Friday at noon.