Galo Pesantes
Staff Writer

The University of La Verne baseball team headed south Feb. 16-19 to play in the Division III Arizona Desert Classic.

In its first two games, ULV faced off against two Washington schools and finished the first two days of competition with a big win over Whitman, 13-1, and a close loss to Whitworth, 4-3.

In the win, La Verne enjoyed an offensive explosion including eight runs through the first three innings of play.

Of those eight runs, Scott Marcus accounted for seven of those runs including two home runs in the game.

“I was dialed in when I was out there during those games,” said Marcus, a transfer from Citrus College. “They couldn’t get me out unless I got myself out,” Marcus said.

The Leopards’ junior catcher also hit a single and a triple and missed on hitting for the cycle by not completing a double.

Meanwhile, starter Ryan Rose closed the door on the Whitman Missionaries by allowing only one run in seven innings of work while picking up win for the Leopards.

“Our pitching really did well overall but especially in the first two games,” said senior centerfielder Lucas Berry. “ Overall out of the 38 innings total, all of them were great except those two that we fell apart in.”

Yet, in the first game, La Verne was leading Whitworth by two runs entering the sixth inning until the Pirates countered and went ahead 3-2.

Marcus again proved to be valuable by blasting a solo home run and bringing the Leopards back to even up the game at 3-3.

The game headed to an extra inning to the 11th where a two out single with a runner on ended the Leopards’ chances for the win.

La Verne had another strong pitching performance from Mark Simmons as he allowed only one run on three hits while striking out eight batters in over five innings of work.

“In the first two games our starting pitching was excellent but we started out slow in our offensive execution,” said senior shortstop Jason Jarvis. “We came out short on scoring runners and we gave up too many freebies like walks and fielding errors.”

La Verne baseball finished the tournament on the weekend against Pacific Lutheran and George Fox.

Against Pacific Lutheran, La Verne started out hot on offense with a six run lead early in the game until the game got away from them.

The Leopards dropped the game to strong hitting team in Pacific Lutheran, 12-8.

In the next game, freshman starter Richard Johnson stepped up in a big way for ULV through his pitching performance.

Johnson pitched his way through five scoreless innings while Simmons picked up the save after winning the first game of the tournament as the starter.

The Leopards came out victorious in a 4-2 win over George Fox, leaving the tournament with split of two wins and two losses.

Head coach Scott Winterburn maintained that there were factors to be addressed and improved on in preparation for future opponents based on the recent tournament play.

“There are a lot of things we are happy about and there are a lot of things that are fixable,” Winterburn said. “Specifically, on offense we need to improve our execution especially with moving our runners while on base,” Winterburn said.

ULV hopes to hit on all cylinders including pitching, batting, and fielding and bring it all together for success in their next games.

La Verne baseball currently stands overall at a record of 3-5 with aspirations of getting back on track at home against the Whittier Poets today at 2:30 p.m. and then they will travel to Whittier for a two game series beginning at 11:00 a.m.

Galo Pesantes can be reached at gpesantes@ulv.edu.