Seanette Garcia

Redlands first baseman Brian Schumaker is caught stealing by La Verne shortstop Jackson Mehl on a throw from first baseman Jon-Michael Hattabaugh. Mehl had one hit, two RBI’s and scored a run in Friday’s game. In their weekend series, the Leopards won Friday’s game, 9-1, and Saturday’s opener, 6-3, but fell short in the game three, 4-3.

Galo Pesantes
Sports Editor

After a successful run in the California Invitational tournament, the La Verne baseball team continued to elevate its game to the top of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference against Redlands March 23-24.

The Leopards began the three game series at home against the Bulldogs by starting pitcher Mark Simmons.

The senior lefthander made his seventh start in one of the best pitching performances of the entire season.

Simmons went the full nine innings allowing only three hits while also striking out eight and walking only two batters.

“Simmons was unbelievable,” said junior shortstop Jackson Mehl. “He’s a workhorse. He takes a lot of pride in what he does and you can tell out on the field.”

With Simmons going the distance, the Leopards offense gave their starter plenty of support with nine runs on 11 hits including home runs by Mehl and infielder Trevor Boucher.

In addition to Boucher, outfielders Kyle Johnson and Brad Licher extended their hitting streaks into the following games against the Bulldogs.

With the strength of Simmons’ showing and great hitting, the Leopards cruised to their seventh home win of the year, 9-1.

Heading into the doubleheader at Redlands, the Leopards sustained their strong hitting by scoring an opening three runs in the first inning of game one.

Pitching was also instrumental in game one of the doubleheader as Ryan Rose went six innings giving up only one run on four hits.

Relievers Jimmy Wilfong and Grant Wheatley finished off the game for Rose by facing the final 11 batters and giving up only two runs.

La Verne added two more runs in the seventh and eight innings to win game one of the day, 6-3.

In game two La Verne was blanked in the opening inning, unlike the first two games of the series.

Still, the Leopards finally struck first in the second inning, when catcher Kevin Garrity hit an RBI single scoring second baseman Jason Munoz.

After a Redlands run in the fifth inning, the game was deadlocked as Bulldogs starter Kyle Gardner and Leopards starter Tim Jolly dueled all the way until the eighth inning.

In the top of the ninth inning the Leopards added another run to tie the score, 3-3.

Yet Redlands was able to squeeze out one more run on errors by the Leopards defense in the bottom half of the final inning.

Following a throwing error by reliever Daryl Hall, the Bulldogs set their runner in scoring position then scored on a fielding error by Munoz on the following pitch as the Leopards lost the close game, 4-3.

“It’s always tough to lose when stuff like that happens,” said pitcher Sal Diaz.

“It’s sort of a could of would of should of, but we did well in the first win and we just got to keep it up,” Diaz said.

Despite only taking two games from the Bulldogs, the Leopards improved to 7-2 in SCIAC which currently ranks them tied with Cal Lutheran for best in conference.

Today La Verne will travel to Pomona-Pitzer for the first of three games.

The Leopards will then return home Saturday for the final two games of the series against the Sagehens with the first pitch at 11 a.m.

After Pomona ULV will play Chapman another three game series.

With consistent pitching and timely hitting, the team expects to not only keep winning games but ultimately takes steps towards winning the SCIAC crown.

“We just got to keep up playing like we are playing,” said Boucher.

“I think if our pitching keeps pitching the way they are, we should have a great chance to win all our games here on out.”

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