NEWBERG, Ore. – The George Fox baseball team dominated the first game of the day, giving up just one run on their way to a 5-1 victory over the Lewis & Clark Pioneers, before dropping game two, 9-6. The win in the game secured a series victory for the Bruins, a huge lift as they start to look towards the postseason.
How It Happened – Game One
GFU starting pitcher
Aidan Rady struck out two batters in the top of the first inning, and the offense wasted no time getting going, scoring three runs – using back-to-back RBI doubles and an RBI single to drive in the runs. Up 3-0, the Bruins let Rady go to work; the righty would go six innings on 83 pitches while striking out five and giving up just one run.
The dominant pitching allowed the Bruins to settle into an offensive rhythm. They added two more runs in the game, the first coming from a
Noah Meffert RBI single in the bottom of the fourth, and another after a hit-by-pitch with the bases loaded in the sixth.
The Bruins sent
Jonathan Stone and
Ryder Edwards to the mound to close out the game, and the two did so without a hitch. Stone threw a scoreless seventh and eighth, and Edwards a scoreless ninth to wrap up the 5-1 victory. Fox's pitching staff rang up 11 Lewis & Clark batters compared to just three walks.
How It Happened – Game Two
The Bruins jumped out fast in game two as well, scoring five runs in the first two innings (two in the first off a bases-loaded single from
Mason Eastman, and three in the second from a
Noah Meffert sac-fly and a
Jeremy Sangalang single). Up 5-0, the Bruins offense was slowed by the Pios for the next five innings, not picking up a single run in those innings.
GFU was holding to their 5-0 lead until the top of the fifth inning when the Pios had their best offensive inning of the entire day. The Pios brought eight runs in the frame, using seven hits to do it – the Pios 14 hits for the day, all of them singles, and half of them coming in the top of the fifth. The Bruins struggled to get out of the inning, having to make three pitching changes before finding themselves down, 8-5.
Both teams went silent from the plate for the next two frames, before Lewis & Clark scored another run in the eighth to make it 9-5. The Bruins tried to get a two-out rally going, scoring a run after an
Evan Balingit single, but they were unable to get anything else on the board. After a clean top half of the ninth, George Fox found themselves down to their final outs to make up a three-run deficit. Meffert got things started with a double to deep left field and then moved to third on a fielder's choice. However, the Bruins couldn't get any runs across, as the game wrapped up with a 9-6 Bruin loss.
Top Performances
Noah Meffert was on base all day long, picking up three hits in game one with an RBI, before drawing three walks in game two and getting a double in the only at-bat that didn't end in a free pass. The senior is hitting .440 on the year, with more walks than strikeouts (20 walks to 15 strikeouts).
Aidan Rady picked up the win in game one, throwing six innings of one-run baseball, striking out five Pios' batters.
What It Means
After splitting the two games the Bruins are now 15-10 (6-6 NWC), and the Pios are 11-11-1 (3-6 NWC). George Fox remains fifth in the conference, behind Pacific for the last spot in the NWC conference tournament. The Bruins play Pacific in a three-game series at home starting on April 13th.
What Comes Next
The Bruins play rival Linfield Wildcats in a three-game series next weekend, April 6th, in McMinnville, Ore. The first pitch for game one is noon on the 6th, with a second game that day at 3 p.m.
