Senior day sweep brings baseball third-straight regular season SCIAC title

ORANGE, Calif — A pair of big statement wins on senior day at Hart Park on May 7 gives Chapman its third consecutive regular season SCIAC title.

Game 1— W, 10-2

It was a pitchers duel for the majority of the day as Chapman's Wyatt Thompson went toe to toe with La Verne's Gerry Terry. La Verne scored on the third batter of the game and then didn't score again until Thompson exited the game in the ninth. Thompson finished the day with eight innings pitched, four hits allowed, one earned run, and eight strikeouts. 

The Panthers got to Terry in the sixth for four runs. A walk followed by six consecutive hits brought Chapman out in front for good. A Kai Osaka RBI single, was followed by a pinch hit RBI single from Austin Dudas, and the scoring was capped off on a two RBI Drake Mueller double.

AJ Anzai, who went 6-for-6 with a homer and six RBI on Friday picked up right where he left off with the first of his two homers on the day, which followed a Davis Mieliwocki grand slam the at bat before. Back-to-back homers in the eighth inning for the Panthers put them out in front 10-1.

Game 2 — W, 9-1

This one stayed close for a while as well, with Chapman in the lead for the majority of the game, but breaking through in late innings.

La Verne jumped out to a 1-0 lead, but Chapman followed with a Cole Minato RBI single in the bottom half of the second inning, bringing home Oli Sellman.

The next two runs were scored via homers, two solo shots from Nick Kondo and Mieliwocki, his second on the day, put Chapman ahead 3-1.

After another Dudas RBI single, Anzai hit his third bomb of the series, driving in Kondo, and extending Chapman's lead to 6-`1 in the sixth.

 A pair of seniors, Miguel Cebedo and Connor Montgomery notched a double each on the day, Cebedo's being his first hit of the season, and Montogmery's being of the two-run variety to cap off Chapman's scoring for the day at 9-1.

Brandon Menzel started game two and threw five innings of one run ball, striking out two and earning a win, while Ben Ziv, Hank Tobias, and Turner White followed him with four scoreless innings out of the bullpen.

What's Next

Chapman will host the SCIAC tournament next weekend on May 13-15. The Panthers will play the first game at 3 p.m. on Friday, May 13 against Cal Lutheran at Hart Park. The losers' bracket, winners' bracket, and semi-finals games will be played on Saturday, also at Hart, and the championship game(s) will be played on Sunday.

By Joe Perrino

Assistant SID / Recreation Sports Manager

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