CMS Baseball Sweeps Doubleheader, Wins Series Over Occidental

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Baseball team turned on the power offensively over the doubleheader against Occidental with 20 runs on 29 hits lifting the Stags past the Tigers 10-4 in Game 1 and 10-1 in Game 2 of Saturday's twin-bill at Arce Field.

CMS improves to 9-6-1 overall and 4-5 in the SCIAC with the doubleheader sweep of previously undefeated and first place in the conference foe Occidental, which drops to 16-6 overall and 4-2 within the SCIAC. Occidental entered the day undefeated at 4-0 in conference play and on the heels of a 10-0 victory in seven innings on Friday. The Stags put on a show with the bats, scoring in double-digits in back-to-back games for the first time this season.

Patrick Gavin paced the Stags with six hits in nine at-bats including his first home run of the season along with four RBI to extend his hitting streak to five games and raise his batting average to .370 on the season. Gavin now has six multi-hit games after posting three hits during each end of the twin-bill. 

Gavin talks about his teams performance following a doubleheader sweep of Occidental 

Game 1

Occidental got on the board first as Eamon McNeil singled to third base and Reid Gibbs scored with the bases loaded in the first inning. Justin Hull (W, 4-1) would buckle down to induce a fly out from Michael Ingram to strand them loaded and limit the damage, down 1-0 through one inning. 

The Stags threatened to answer back in the bottom half of the first with two hits, including a single to right by Kevin Nakahara, who went 3-for-4, and a single to center by Gavin but both were left on base. 

Hull delivered a clean frame in the second inning after Gus Patrick reached base on an error, a 6-4-3 double play ended the inning.

In the bottom of the third, CMS touched up Tigers starter Will Martel (L, 2-3) for seven runs on six hits and two errors by Occidental. Truman Miller led off the frame with a double to left field, Nakahara kept the line moving with a single to right moving Miller to third, and Ryan Motter lined a single to left to bring in Miller and tie the game 1-1. 

The next batter in the third, Zach Clarke drove one up the middle and scored Nakahara to give the Stags a 2-1 lead. Gavin doubled to left scoring Motter, and Marco Castillo reached on an error which scored Clarke. 

Occidental went to the bullpen and replaced Martel with reliever Tom Butler, who then allowed a sacrifice fly to Henri Levenson to bring Castillo home. Miller made his second plate appearance in the inning when he reached on an error and Carson Bridges scored to stretch the advantage to 7-1 through three innings. 

CMS added a run in the fourth inning when Bridges singled to left and Clarke scored, after Clarke opened the frame with a single to center, giving the Stags an 8-1 lead. 

The Stags tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the seventh after allowing two runs in the sixth and a run in the top half of the inning, on a double play off the bat of Motter to score Miller and a double by Gavin to score Clarke pushing the advantage to the final of 10-4. 

Hull earned his fourth victory of the season after tossing 7.0 innings, allowing two earned runs (four total runs) with three walks and six strikeouts. Nico Mannucci was brought on in the eighth inning and finished out the final two frames scoreless on one hit. 

Game 2 

The second end of the twin-bill began with a pitchers duel. Both sides were held scoreless through the first three innings until CMS broke through in the fourth. Gavin kept up his hitting ways with three more hits, including the first hit of the game for the Stags in the second inning, a single to right field. 

Josh Cordova (W, 2-1) allowed one hit through the first three innings of work a double by Ingram whom he stranded on base to keep the scoreless outing intact up to that point. 

In the bottom of the fourth, Clarke led off with a single to right field and then Gavin promptly drilled his first home run of the season, a two-run shot to left field to give the Stags a 2-0 lead through four innings. It was the sophomore's eighth home run of his career all previous seven coming during his freshman season. 

The fifth inning flew by with three-up and three-down for both teams as both pitchers seemed to settle in, but in the sixth Occidental cut the lead in half scoring a run on a ground out by Jack Brancheau which scored Ingram after he led off the inning with a single to center field. Up until that point, Cordova had allowed only two hits. In the sixth, the Tigers touched up Cordova for one run on two hits.

Cordova, though, was able to limit the damage and strand a runner on base with a fly out by Angelo Zorn to end the inning and keep the 2-1 lead intact through the top of the sixth. 

CMS answered back with two runs on three hits in the home half of the sixth inning. Castillo drove a two-run single to center field and Gavin scored on a passed ball pushing the lead to 4-1 through six complete. 

Reliever Brandon Mitchell threw up a zero in the seventh frame and worked 2.0 innings with three strikeouts and one walk in relief of Cordova and the Stags brought across six runs on four hits in the bottom of the seventh to blow the game open to a 10-1 final. 

Clarke went 4-for-10 with two RBI, Motter finished 3-for-10 with one RBI, Bridges went 5-for-8 with three RBI as the Stags finished with 29 hits combined between the two games. Gavin doubled twice in Game 1 and drove in two runs during his three-hit performance and drove in two more runs in Game 2 over another three-hit effort. 

Danny Porras finished out the ninth inning with two strikeouts. Cordova held the Tigers to one run over 6.0 innings to earn his second win of the season. 

The Stags have won six of their last eight games and are back in action tomorrow as they host MIT at Arce Field at 3 p.m.