WALLA WALLA, Wash. – In their first Northwest Conference doubleheader of the year, the George Fox baseball team lost both against the Whitman Blues, the first on a devastating walk-off home run, 6-5, and the second game in a 17-4 defeat.
How It Happened - Game One
The first game would come down to the final inning, as the Bruins and the Blues went back and forth for the first eight innings.
Noah Meffert got the game going with a single to get on base with no one out. Meffert worked his way to third, and
Carson Coulter drove him in with a sacrifice fly to give the Bruins the first lead of the day, 1-0. The Blues responded in the bottom half of the first inning, scoring on a fielder's choice to tie the game going into the second inning.
GFU took advantage of several Whitman errors in the second to take back the lead, as they scored on a hit-by-pitch that put
Bleu Ellis on base before he scored on a fielder's choice. With Fox up, 2-1, Whitman scored in the second inning, tying the game on a wild pitch. The Bruins wouldn't let the tie stand for long, as
Mason Eastman hit a two-RBI single in the top of the third that gave GFU the lead again, 4-2.
Neither team would score again until the fourth inning when the Blues tied the game at four runs each after an RBI triple. The game stayed at the 4-4 deadlock for the next three innings before
Evan Balingit hit a moon shot over the left field fence — his first home run of the season — to give Fox a 5-4 edge. In the bottom half of that same inning though, the Blues used two hits to put base runners on first and third and then used a sacrifice bunt to score the tying run.
The eighth inning was scoreless, setting up the last at-bats before each team if they didn't want to play extra innings. The Bruins all went down on strikes in the ninth inning, meaning that they would need to hold the Blues scoreless in the bottom half to go to extras. However, the Blues catcher Halen Otte would hit a walk-off home run to left center field that would end the game in a Bruin loss, 6-5, after nine back-and-forth innings.
How It Happened - Game Two
The Blues jumped over the Bruins in the first inning of the second game, scoring five runs in the first inning on five singles. GFU responded in the second inning, scoring two runs of their own, with Eastman hitting a single that drove in both runs, keeping Fox within striking distance at 2-5.
In the third inning, though, the Blues would rack up six more runs and alter the tone of the game completely. After three innings, the Bruins found themselves down, 11-2.
Fox was able to score a pair of runs in the seventh and eighth innings, scoring off a Jarod Miller
RBI single and another Eastman single. However, the Blues would respond each time, and eventually, the Bruins fell, 17-4.
Top Performances
Jeremy Sangalang went 3-3 at the plate in the second game, as did
Mason Eastman (who added three RBIs to his total) and
Evan Balingit had possibly the best swing of the day for the Bruins with his solo homer in the first game.
What It Means
The Bruins now sit at 5-5 (0-2 NWC), and the Blues are now 3-3 (2-0 NWC).
What Happens Next
Fox wraps up their series against the Blues tomorrow, with the last game of the three-game set starting at noon in Walla Walla.
