NEWBERG, Ore. - Guaranteeing themselves a 15th straight winning season and staying in the thick of the Northwest Conference baseball race, the visiting George Fox University Bruins swept a doubleheader from the Lewis & Clark College Pioneers 7-1 and 14-8 Saturday afternoon here at the Huston Sports Complex.   

George Fox is now 22-11 overall with seven regular season games left, and a possibility of at least two games if the Bruins can make it back to the NCAA Tournament.  They kept their post-season chances alive by improving to 15-5 in the conference, remaining within striking distance of front-running Pacific Lutheran University (14-2 in the NWC) and second-place Linfield College (14-4 in the NWC).  Lewis & Clark slipped to 9-19 overall and 6-14 in the league.

Mark Putney (6-3) pitched the Bruins to victory in the opener, spacing five hits over 7.0 shutout innings while striking out nine and walking three.  Travis Schroeder finished up, allowing one hit and an unearned run in the 9th.  The loss went to Alex St. Pierre (3-3), who surrendered 14 hits and seven runs while fanning five and walking one in 7.0 innings.

A walk to Jason Brown, a ground out, and an RBI single by Dan Winterstein produced the Bruins' first run in the 2nd, and singles by Nate Hickok, Josh Burch, and Sam Stahl made it 2-0 in the 3rd.  Hickok hit an RBI single and Michael Woo a two-run single for three runs in the 4th, and Winterstein and Hickok drove in runs in the 7th with base hits to close out the Bruin scoring.

Hickok and Winterstein paced a 15-hit George Fox attack with three hits each, while Woo, Stahl, and Eric Gantenbein had two hits apiece.  Sami Morgan had two safeties for the Pioneers.

In the nightcap, the Bruins twice battled back from five-run deficits to win.  Lewis & Clark bunched together three hits, an error, a hit-by-pitch, a wild pitch, and a sacrifice fly for five runs in the 3rd to take a 6-1 lead.  The Bruins got two back in the 4th on an RBI single by Gantenbein and a sacrifice fly by Winterstein, but the Pios upped the lead back to 8-3 in the home half on a two-run homer by Morgan.

Woo's ground out drove in Seth Anderson for a George Fox run in the 5th, then the Bruins tied it with four in the 6th.  Josh Rapacz singled in the first run of the frame, and Anderson greeted reliever Roland Greene (0-3), the eventual loser, with a three-run blast, his second home run of the season, to tie it.

The Bruins scored the tie-breaking run in the 7th as Stahl was hit by a pitch, stole second, moved up on a fielder's choice, and scored on Winterstein's sacrifice fly.  A four-run 8th enabled the Bruins to take control, Stahl doubling in two runs, and Woo and Stahl both scoring on Gantenbein's sacrifice bunt as the runners were on the move as the pitch was made and never slowed down.  Hickok singled following a Rapacz double for the Bruins' final run in the 9th.

Schroeder (2-0) got the win with 4.0 innings of two-hit shutout ball after relieving starter Jeremy Cheney, who struggled through five innings and left in an 8-8 tie.  Schroder fanned four and did not walk a batter. 

Each team collected nine hits, but the Bruins benefitted from the Pios' wildness, drawing nine walks and getting two hit batmen and three L&C wild pitches.  Rapacz was the only Bruin with two hits, while Eliot Smith, Tucker Laurence, and Giuseppe Baffaro had two each for the Pios.

The teams will conclude their three-game series with a single game Sunday at 1:00 p.m. here.