Baseball falls to Redlands in first round of SCIAC Tournament
REDLANDS, Calif. – The Chapman University baseball team fell to No. 2 Redlands 13-6 in the first round of the SCIAC Postseason Tournament earlier this afternoon. The No. 3 seed Panthers were led by junior Alex Tsuruda, who went 3-for-5 with a couple of RBIs, two runs scored and a home run.
The Bulldogs took an early 7-0 lead after the first three innings. A scoreless fourth inning put the Panthers on offense in the top of the fifth. Tsuruda stepped up to the plate with two outs and hit a solo home run to put Chapman up on the board.
Redlands tacked on six more runs over the next three innings to take a 13-1 lead heading into the eighth inning. After a scoreless top half of the eighth, sophomore Riley Glenn pitched a three up, three down bottom half of the inning to bring the Panthers back up to the plate with one inning left to play.
The Panthers hit their stride and rallied to score five runs in the top of the ninth. With junior Jarod Penniman on second, sophomore Kevin Gregersen stepped up to the plate and doubled to center field to score Penniman. Tsuruda was the next batter and he singled up the middle to score Gregerson and notch his second RBI on the day. Sophomore Aaron Wong stepped up and singled through the right side, advancing Tsuruda to second.
With two on and two out, senior Jared Love doubled to right center, tallying two RBIs and bringing the score to 13-5. Love scored the final run on a wild pitch, but a groundout to first ended the game and gave Chapman their first loss of the SCIAC tournament.
Love went 3-for-5 with a couple of RBIs and one run scored. Senior Gavin Blodgett also tallied three hits on the day, batting 3-for-4 with three singles.
Chapman heads out to La Verne tomorrow morning at 8:30 am to take on the loser of Pomona-Pitzer and La Verne.
by Katie Bell
Sports Information Assistant
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