RIVERSIDE, Calif. — After a huge win on Friday night in Riverside, Eagles Baseball looked to carry its winning mentality and performance throughout the double header on Saturday. Falling short 6-2 in game one, Concordia clawed their way back in game two to pull off a 5-3 win and split the series with Cal Baptist. The split doubleheader puts the teams at 2-2 for the series.
Game one brought senior Neil Lang to the hill through five innings. Despite receiving the loss, Lang had a great outing giving up only one earned run, six hits and striking out six Lancers. Morgan Brannock relieved Lang of his duties for the final two innings allowing three hits and one run.
Cal Baptist took an early lead putting three on the board in the third. The Eagles were a run short of matching it after a rally in the top of the fourth. Tony Garcia III knocked a base hit to left field and scored on a double to right center field by Dillon Millar. Dominic Castro reached on a throwing error that scored Millar and put the Eagles final run on the board for the nooner.
The Lancers came back in the fourth inning to score two more runs of their own and another in the eighth to put the Eagles out of business 6-2.
Freshman Joshua Ibarra got the start in game two and threw three innings. Ibarra allowed two runs and four hits before being relieved by Sam Reed. The junior tossed one inning and Jason McLellan came in to close the Eagles out. Receiving the win from Concordia's four run final inning, McLellan faced 11 batters, allowed one hit and struck out one Lancer.
Concordia's side of the scoreboard was empty and trailing the Lancers 3-0 until the sixth inning. Davis Tominaga smacked a double to left center field and was advanced to third on a single to left field by Hunter Holland. Chris Martin came up and hit a sacrifice fly to left that scored Tominaga. The eagles still trailed 3-1 after the sixth.
A one-two-three bottom of the sixth brought Concordia to the plate again. Garcia led off and walked. Millar hit a double to center field, his second of the day, to advance Garcia to third. With runners in scoring position, Castro doubled to right center to score Garcia and Millar. Later, Holland doubled to left center to bring pinch runners Dimascio and Nava across the plate. In a four-run seventh inning, the Eagles took the win against Cal Baptist in the nightcap.
Head Coach Joe Turgeon was pleased with the way his team performed. "After Thursday night, we started playing more freely with less care for the results and had fun playing the game. It was a complete effort the entire weekend," said Turgeon.
Coming up: Eagles Baseball heads on a Hawaiian road trip to play two four-game PacWest series against Hawai'i Pacific and University of Hawai'i at Hilo. The first doubleheader of the road trip begins on April 7th at 4 p.m.
