Korson Tosses Shutout as CMS Baseball Opens SCIAC with Sweep of Chapman

ORANGE, Calif. - Jarrett Korson threw a complete-game four-hit shutout, striking out eight, in the opener and Henry Connell threw 6.1 strong innings in the nightcap, allowing just two runs, as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team took both ends of a road doubleheader over Chapman 5-0 and 6-2 on Sunday afternoon at Hart Park.

The Stags improve to 8-3 with the wins and start out SCIAC play at 2-0, making a statement against one of the league's traditional powers. Chapman won the 2019 Division III national title and reached the NCAA Super Regionals a year ago, but falls to 1-5 with the two losses.

Korson got out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning after allowing a single and a hit-by-pitch to the first two batters, and didn't allow a runner past second the rest of the way. He retired the side in order in the third, fourth and fifth, part of a stretch of 13 straight outs until a two-out double in the sixth. He left a runner on second in the seventh and eighth, and then retired the side in order in the ninth to finish off his shutout on 123 pitches (80 for strikes).

Derek Seneker provided all the offense CMS would need in the fourth with an RBI double, and Mitchell Mashiko added an insurance run when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. The score stayed stuck at 2-0 until the ninth, when CMS added three insurance runs to give Korson some breathing room, with Julian Sanders capping it off with an RBI double.

Tyler Shaw was 2-for-4 with a walk, and Sanders and Nick Wilson each went 2-for-5 for CMS, which had 12 hits as a team, getting at least one from each spot in the batting order.

In the nightcap, CMS got off to a 3-0 lead in the second on just one hit, when Seneker doubled to put runners on second and third with one out, and William DeForest (hit by pitch), Cade Kritsch (walk) and Jack Potter (walk) each picked up an RBI with the bases loaded. The Stags tacked on another run in the fourth when Sanders led off with a double and came home on an RBI groundout from Mashiko.

Chapman finally got on the board for the first time in 14 innings of the doubleheader in the bottom of the fifth, when they pushed across a run on a two-out RBI single from AJ Anzai. Connell closed the door there with a strikeout of Davis Mieliwocki to keep it a 4-1 game heading into the sixth.  

Chapman tacked on a run in the seventh on a sacrifice fly and had runners on first and second with two outs, but reliever Hamilton Finefrock left them there on a fly ball to center field to preserve the two-run lead. The momentum from the final out carried over into the eighth, as Sanders, Roche and Seneker led off with three straight singles, each picking up their second hits of the game, to push an insurance run across, with a Chapman error adding a second run to push the lead to 6-2.

Lucas Welch threw two scoreless innings, allowing two hits, closing it out with a strikeout to give CMS the doubleheader sweep.  Chapman managed 13 hits, all singles, but left 12 runners on base.

The two teams will try to play the third game of their three-game series tomorrow at Caltech at 2:30 p.m., weather permitting.