A day after opening GSAC Tournament play with a 12-5 win over No. 4 Azusa Pacific, Westmont Baseball suffered a 4-2 loss to the Eagles of Biola in the double-elimination tournament.
The Warriors will next play at eleven o’clock in an elimination game against the loser of the game between The Master’s and Concordia.
The Eagles scored two runs each in the first and third innings. In the first inning, Biola’s Vinnie Fayard drove in a run in the person of Benji Southerland with a ground ball to short. Later in the inning Fayard scored when Mac Sullivan ground out to second.
In the third inning, Mike Lopez produced a two-RBI single that drove in Fayard and Drake Fages.
Westmont’s runs came in the top of the fourth inning. With one away, center fielder J.J. Turbin singled up the middle. Tim Leary then poked his seventeenth home run of the season over the right field fence, establishing a new Warrior single season home run record.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, that was the end of the scoring.
Westmont starter Ryan Sullivan was charged with the loss. Sullivan pitched eight innings, giving up four runs on nine hits. He struck out seven and walked just one.
Geoff Rocha pitched the ninth for the Warriors, retiring the side in order.
Biola’s Nick Turner earned the winning, pitching eight innings and allowing two runs on six hits, Turner struck out eight and walked one.
“Not to take anything away from Turner, he pitched a good game,” said Westmont head coach Robert Ruiz, “but I felt like Biola was able to execute at the plate when they needed to and we weren’t. That was the difference in the game.
“Tomorrow, we just go out there again and follow our process,” said Ruiz. “I have a lot of confidence in this team. We have already been in a situation where if we lost a game we couldn’t move forward. We might be the only team left in the tournament to already have that experience.”
The winner of tomorrow’s eleven o’clock game will play again at 5:30 p.m. taking on the winner of game between The Master’s and Concordia.
