Box Score NEWBERG, Ore. – Derek
Dixon slammed Taylor Isadore's first pitch in the
bottom of the 10th over the left-field fence, giving the
15th-ranked George Fox University Bruins a stunning 5-4 win over
the defending Northwest Conference baseball champion Whitworth
University Pirates and a three-game series sweep Saturday afternoon
here at Morse Field.
With the win, George Fox climbed to 19-7 overall and 12-3 in the
conference, while Whitworth lost its seventh in a row, falling to
9-15-1 overall and 4-8 in the NWC. The Bruins also gained a
game in the conference standings when league-leading and No.
1-ranked Linfield College lost at home to the University of Puget
Sound 9-7; the Bruins are now only one game behind the
Wildcats.
The Bruins took a 2-0 lead in the 1st. Matthew Zeller
singled to center to start the frame and went to second on a wild
pickoff throw by southpaw Nick Scourey, then continued on to third
on the same play when first baseman Gerhard Muelheims also made a
bad throw to second. After Zach Miller walked, Dixon hit a
sacrifice fly to center. Danny Clifford doubled to right,
sending Miller to third, and when right fielder Thomas
Wakem's relay throw got away from second baseman Danny
Jordan, Miller kept going and scored.
The Pirates got one back in the 2nd against Bruin righty Tom
Zarosinski. Muelheims and Wakem singled to put runners at the
corners, and Jordan's safety squeeze bunt plated
Muelheims. Zarosinski escaped further damage with a pop up
and a ground out, and the two starters matched zeros over the next
four-and-a-half innings.
Whitworth took its first lead in the 7th. With one out,
Jordan singled to right and Erik Nikssarian was hit by a pitch,
bringing Eric Kittelson on in relief of Zarosinski. Motsinger
greeted Kittelson with a double down the left-field line that
brought both runners around for a 3-2 Pirate lead.
The Bruins knotted it in the home half of the inning.
Jared Chase got a pinch-single to lead off and was sacrificed to
second by Zac Israel. Zeller bunted for a hit that sent Chase
to third, and Miller reached when Wakem dropped his fly to right
that was deep enough to score Chase as a sacrifice fly.
However, the Bruins were unable to capitalize on the miscue, and
after both teams failed to score in the 8th, the game went to the
9th tied 3-3.
In the top of the inning, Jordan beat out an infield single to
deep short leading off and Nikssarian sacrificed him to
second. Sean Eberhardt (2-0) replaced Kittelson, and
Motsinger again put the Pirates ahead with a line single to
left-center that scored Jordan.
In the Bruins' 9th, Kadyn Nannini led off against Isadore
(1-2), who had come in with two out in the 7th, with a single
behind the bag at third that was knocked down by third sacker
Jeremy Druffel. Austin Egger sacrificed Nannini to second,
and he alertly went to third when Jordan made a good running
catch of Israel's pop toward right but could not turn and get
off a strong throw in time. Down to their last out, the
Bruins were saved when Zeller, on an 0-2 count, laced a single to
left to score Nannini with the tying run.
Eberhardt gave up a two-out single to Jordan in the top of the
10th but got Nikssarian to foul out to first, giving Dixon a chance
in the last of the inning. The big first baseman, who has
been the Bruins' hottest hitter over the last three weeks,
did not disappoint, lofting his fourth home run of the season high
over the fence for the winning run.
Zarosinski worked 6.1 innings, allowing five hits and three runs
with five strikeouts and two walks, Kittelson went two innings with
three strikeouts and a walk, and Eberhardt got the win with 1.2
innings of shutout ball, fanning one and walking two. Scourey
went 6.2 innings for the Pirates, spacing five hits with four
strikeouts, three walks, and three runs allowed. Isadore gave
up three hits and two runs in 2.1 innings.
Zeller had three hits out of the Bruins' eight, as did
Jordan for the Pirates. Motsinger and Muelheims had two hits
each, with Motsinger driving in three runs.
In an unusual side note, there were seven errors committed in
the game - six by Whitworth, one by George Fox - yet because most
of them were on throws (five of them) and because of subsequent
events, none of the nine runs in the game were unearned.
NEXT: George Fox hosts Concordia
University-Portland Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. in the makeup of a game
that was rained out on Mar. 19 ... Whitworth returns home to host
Lewis & Clark College in a three-game NWC series, starting with
a doubleheader on Saturday at 12:00 noon.