CMS Baseball Falls in Series Opener at La Verne
LA VERNE, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball team fell in an early 3-0 hole and could not recover as it dropped a 9-4 decision at La Verne in the first game of a three-game series on Friday afternoon.
The loss snaps a 10-game winning streak for CMS, which slips to 27-8 on the year and 17-5 in SCIAC, falling two games behind first-place La Verne at 19-3. The Stags can still pull even with the Leopards with a sweep tomorrow, which would give CMS the top seed by giving it the tiebreaker in the process with a 2-1 series win.
Julian Sanders was the lone CMS player to have a multi-hit game, finishing 2-for-4 with an RBI double in the eighth. That was followed by an RBI triple from Paul Roche and sacrifice fly from Nick Wilson to cut the lead to 8-3.
CMS also put the first two runners on in the ninth after an error and a single from Mitchell Mashiko, but Ian Wong came in to retire the next three batters in order, allowing just a sacrifice fly to Bryce Didrickson to plate the final run of the game.
La Verne scored three times in the first and one in the second to get the early upper hand. Ethan Galindo then went 7.1 innings to get the win for the Leopards, allowing just one earned run.
CMS will host the Leopards tomorrow for two games at Pomona-Pitzer Baseball Field to close out the regular season. The Stags have already qualified for their first ever SCIAC Postseason Tournament (which began in 2013), and can finish no lower than the No. 3 seed, but can earn the No. 1 with a doubleheader sweep.