COWLEY, Wyo. – The Central Washington University baseball team finished their four game series against Montana State University Billings. The team lost both games today dropping the series.
 
In game one on the day Central jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first inning. The action started with a walk from Justin Hampson who then came around to score after Yi-Fan Pan was hit by a pitch and Yi-An Pan reached on an error. Hampson and Yi-Fan both scored on a single from Michael Peter.
 
Central then added another run in the top of the second inning after Hampson drew another walk, stole second, and then advanced to third on a wild pitch. Mitch Lesmeister brought in Hampson with a single up the middle collecting his 12^th RBI on the year.
 
James Brooks took the bump in game one and went four scoreless innings. The senior pitcher was given the loss for the game after going six innings giving up four runs, on six hits, while walking just one and striking out a season high nine.
 
The Yellowjackets tied the game in the bottom of the fifth scoring three runs in the inning. They proceeded to add a run in the sixth and seventh inning. The MSUB bullpen was able to silence the Wildcat offense. Montana ended up taking the win in game one by score of 5-3.
 
In game two, Hunter French took the mound for the Wildcats and was also handed the loss. French went six innings giving up two runs, on five hits, while walking just one and striking out eight of the 24 batters that he faced.
 
Montana State started the scoring in the bottom of the third inning when Ryan Roche singled and then later came around to score when Wyatt Setian homered to left field on a two and one pitch. Central was able to answer back getting one run in the top of the fourth.
 
Justin Hampson continued his hot hitting streak with a solo shot in the fourth inning off of MSUB starter Keven Mackintosh. However, Mackintosh got the better of things going 6.1 innings and giving up just one run on three hits. His effort helped the Yellow Jackets take game four of the series to secure the series win.
 
Central was able to load the bases in the top half of the seventh inning but wasn't able to get anything out of the inning after Brooks Zimmer came in on relief for the Yellow Jackets and picked up the save. Zimmer struck out the only hitter that he saw even with the bases loaded.
 
"We just didn't have the timely hitting that we usually do." Said CWU Head Coach Desi Storey. "There was a couple times that we had the bases loaded in the game and we just weren't able to put the runs on the board we needed to. Both our starters did well today. It was good to see Brooks get back on track and Hunter did a good job holding an explosive offense to just two. Just comes down to timely hitting and we couldn't do that as well as we usually do today."
 
The Crimson and Black are back in action on Saturday (Mar. 23) and Sunday (Mar. 24) for a four-game series against Concordia (Ore.).  First pitch is scheduled for noon both days.