Late rally not enough for Stags to come back against Whittier

CLAREMONT, Calif. – To begin their second conference series of the year, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team lost to Whittier 11-5 on Friday evening. The Stags' offense was not able to muster enough runs early in the game and then ran out of innings to fight back.

The Poets put two runs on the board in the first two innings from a pair of walks and a fielder's choice for the first and a squeeze bunt scored the second. The Stags answered back in the bottom of the second inning with a leadoff double by sophomore Mackenzie Menthen followed by a single up the middle by junior Christian Hoxsie that scored Menthen.

Whittier took the game into their hands, scoring four runs in the top of the third inning off four singles, double and a pair of walks. They tacked on two more unanswered runs in the top of the fourth inning. After a homer to straight away left field by Julian Barzilli in the fifth inning, Whittier led CMS 9-1. Barzilli was 4-5 for the Poets and four RBI.

In the bottom of the sixth, CMS capitalized on some miscues by both Whittier's pitching and the defense. Senior Ray Hurwitz led off the inning with a walk and advanced to second on Menthen's single through the left side. Freshman Evan Opperman reached first on an error by the short stop and subsequently loaded the bases. Both Hurwitz and Menthen scored on back to back RBI walks before the end of the inning making the score 9-3 still in the Poets' favor.

After two pitching changes the Stags were able to put up another run in the bottom of the seventh. Freshman Sam Baughman came in in relief and pitched two and third scoreless innings for the Stags.

As darkness descended, the Stags rallied with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.  Hoxsie tripled to the left center gap and was hit in by a single from sophomore Andrew Burgard to give CMS their fifth run for the night. Unfortunately the rally was cut short just as the Stags seemed to be hitting a stride.

CMS goes to Whittier on Saturday to play a double header at 11 am and 2 pm to finish off the three game series.  The Stags sit at 3-6 overall and look to improve on their current 1-3 record in conference.

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