Leos top APU and Cal Lu to close

by Chrissy Zehrbach
Assistant Editor

The University of La Verne baseball team closed its season over the weekend, sweeping its final Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference series against the California Institute of Technology.

After an 18-0 shutout against Cal Tech Friday at Ben Hines Field, the Leopards were more than ready to finish off the series. Although Saturday's doubleheader in Pasadena was postponed a day due to rain, ULV wasted no time getting the job done Sunday in a 31-3 victory.

"It wasn't very close, but it was still challenging," said senior infielder John Doak. "We took it as any other game."

"Going in, you know that it's not going to be a typical college baseball game, but our guys did a great job of staying focused and doing things right," said head coach Scott Winterburn.

Cal Tech forfeited the second game of the series, finishing the season 0-21 in SCIAC.

The Leopards ended their season with a six-game winning streak, winning 12 of their last 13 SCIAC games. ULV showed its strength as the Leopards turned their record around after a slow 1-7 start in conference. The Leopards finished 19-20 overall.

The end of the season also marks two great achievements for the Leopards. Last week ULV defeated Cal Lutheran and Azusa Pacific ­ two teams La Verne has not beaten in years.

ULV took on APU at home April 30 and defeated the Cougars for the first time in three seasons, 13-6.

"More than anything else, I'm happy for our seniors; this senior class hasn't beat Azusa Pacific, and Azusa Pacific has always been a bench-mark school," Winterburn said. "They've done a great job; they win championships; they do a lot of things right, so for our guys to beat them soundly - it was gratifying to have that group of seniors go out, being able to say they beat a good team."

"They're like our rivals, and they've always beat us so it feels good," Doak said.

The Leopards defeated Cal Lu April 26, in a doubleheader in Thousand Oaks, 4-3 and 11-3. The wins followed a 17-3 home loss the previous day.

"Our guys responded real well and played together and did so many little things that you want to do to win baseball games," Winterburn said.

This series marked the first time ULV has defeated Cal Lu since 1995 when the Leopards went undefeated for a conference championship.

"It feels like we accomplished something," Doak said. "Our hard work paid off."

The Cal Lu series was the highlight of the season, Winterburn said.

"To go down into their backyard and sweep a doubleheader, especially after rebounding from a tough defeat on Friday where you just get blown out - to come back and respond and play 18 innings of great baseball; its very gratifying to see this group, and in particular, this group of seniors, go down there and beat them," he said.

The two wins ULV took from the Kingsmen knocked Cal Lu out of first place, and landed the Leopards in a tie for third place with Whittier with a 13-8 SCIAC record.

"For the things that we did overcome, it feels good to get third," Doak said. "We made a pretty good run in the middle of the season."

The Leopards fell shy of their goal of a championship, but they look at the experience positively.

"We met a lot of objectives that we set forth in terms of effort, hard work and desire," Winterburn said. "We met those objectives, and our guys worked hard all year long. We just didn't get the wins to fall our way. But we'll constantly strive and push to win SCIAC championships; that's the goal."

ULV will lose eight seniors from this season's roster. Winterburn is confident, however, that the seniors will pass the torch.

"We promote strong senior leadership, and next year will be no different.. It's time for those guys who are going to be seniors to step up and take the leadership reins and do all the things that this class was able to do and do them well," Winterburn said.