ELLENSBURG, Wash. (Feb. 15) – The Central Washington University baseball team has five games on the schedule for this weekend and Monday.
GAME INFORMATION
Saturday (Feb. 16) DH at 11 a.m.
vs Corban (Ore.)
Adair Village, OR | Santiam Christian HS
LIVE STATS
Sunday (Feb. 17) DH at 11 a.m.
vs Corban (Ore.)
Keizer, OR | Volcanoes Stadium
LIVE STATS
Monday (Feb. 18)
vs Western Oregon
LOCATION TBD
QUOTABLE
"It's a chance for our guys to continue to improve before we open up GNAC play," CWU Head Coach
Desi Storey said. "I'm looking forward to seeing how we bounce back from last week and continue to improve our execution of the little things."
SCOUTING CORBAN (ORE.)
The Warriors are 2-7 on the season, but have won their last two games. They opened the season on an 0-7 run, including getting swept by William Jessup (Calif.) and Westmont College (Calif.).
On the road, Corban is 0-6 but have a 2-1 record at home. The Warriors took two games against Menlo College on Sunday (Feb. 10).
Corban is hitting .223 as a team and have scored 24 runs. John Dodson, Zack Simon, and Ben Ross have each gone deep for the Warriors.
Jonathan Russomano and Zachary Filos have each made three starts on the mound. Russomano is 0-2 over 15 innings. He has posted an earned run average of 3.00 and struck out 11 hitters. Opponents are hitting .241 off of Russomano. Filos is 1-2 through 14.2 innings. He has a 3.68 ERA and has picked up nine strikeouts.
Jacob Bowser has appeared in five relief outings and tossed seven innings. He has an ERA of 1.29 and earned one save.
The Warriors have a team ERA of 6.58 and opponents are hitting .313.
LAST TIME OUT
The Wildcats were swept by the Academy of Art and Stanislaus State in a three-game series last weekend.
The Wildcat offense was jumpstarted by senior
Robert Ball who collected the first hit for Central on the year. Newcomer
Trevor Tripoli followed by collecting his first hit of his young college career. Nothing came of the inning though as the Wildcats could not scrape across a run.
The Urban Knights got on the board first with a three-run inning in the fourth. Central didn't wait long to respond. In the top of the sixth, Tripoli collected his second hit of the game which was followed by a sac bunt by
Justin Hampson. Both runners moved up on a throwing error on the play.
Mitch Lesmeister, Yi-an Pan, and
Jaden Hassell all had RBI singles following the error.
Luke Smith later doubled in the inning to score Pan before the inning ended.
Lesmeister snagged his second RBI of the game with a single up the middle that scored
Cameron McGrath, who walked earlier in the inning. At the end of the top of the seventh inning the Wildcats were leading 5-3. AAU came back the bottom half of the inning and scored three runs of their own to take a one run lead by score of six to five to take game one of the doubleheader.
Game two was started by senior right hander
Connor Stevenson who was looking to turn things around for the Wildcats. Stevenson did just that by going five and one third innings, facing 22 batters, and giving up six hits. He did not allow a single run on 78 pitches, 51 of which were strikes.
Yi-an Pan started the fourth inning off with a double to center field, followed by a sacrifice bunt from Hassell allowing Pan to move up to third base.
Jon Pinto followed that with a hard ground ball up the middle which scored Pan from third.
JJ Asinas came in for relief in the bottom of the sixth inning with two runners on and one out. Asinas came up big, striking out the first hitter that he saw looking, and followed by getting the next AAU hitter to ground into a fielder's choice to end the inning hold onto a one run lead.
The game stayed quiet until the bottom half of the eighth inning when Daniel Curiel tripled to start off the inning and later scored when Elijah Smith doubled down the right field line to tie the game at one.
Colton Bunt came in to pinch hit in the bottom half of the ninth inning and reached base after a fielding error from the AAU shortstop. Pinto put down a sacrifice bunt in order to move the runner to second. However, the Wildcats couldn't do anything more in the inning.
The Urban Knights were able to string together a couple walks and sacrifice bunts in order to take the win by score of 2-1 in the bottom half of the ninth inning.
Against Stanislaus, the bats were quiet through the first two innings. The Wildcats loaded the bases in the third inning with nobody out. Hahn rolled a double play up the middle, but
Ball came in from third for a 1-0 Central Washington lead.
Lesmeister strode to the plate with two outs and
Bunt on third, knocking a single through the left side for a 2-0 advantage.
Stanislaus State tied the game in their half of the third inning on a two-run single into left field. The Warriors took a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning. A single to center field brought home Nathan Gutierrez. Central turned to its bullpen down a run, bringing on
Hunter French (0-1) for his debut.
The Wildcats levelled the score in the top of the fifth with a sacrifice fly from
Justin Hampson. The Warriors responded in kind, driving in a trio of runs in the bottom half. A lead-off double for Stanislaus was followed by a Matt Elser single, driving home Grant Bunker. Elser then came around to score on a triple to right field from Jack Large. Alexis Paz concluded the scoring with an RBI-groundout for a 6-3 lead.
Central Washington plated a pair of runs in the top of the sixth inning.
Pinto singled home
Yi-an Pan, before Bunt sliced a single through the right side to score
Jaden Hassell.
A sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the seventh gave the Warriors an insurance run as they held on 7-5.
