April 19, 2008

Lutes Take First Game From Whitman, Second Game Suspended

Game One

PARKLAND – Pacific Lutheran lashed a total of 14 hits in taking a 10-2 victory over the visiting Whitman Missionaries in a Northwest Conference baseball game played in 35-degree temperatures and occasional snow flurries on Saturday afternoon.

The second game of the doubleheader was suspended because of wet field conditions entering the bottom of the eighth inning with PLU leading, 8-1. The game will be completed starting at noon on Sunday, followed by the regularly scheduled pair of seven-inning games between the teams.

The Lutes (19-12-2 overall, 16-9 NWC) picked up where they left off last week when they hit .463 and scored 54 runs in a four-game series sweep of Whitworth. Brandon Sales had three hits and Jordan Post, Geoff Gabler and Ryan Aratani each had a pair for the winners. Gabler and Aratani both drove in a pair of runs in the victory.

The Missionaries (2-31 / 0-25), whose losing streak increased to 30 consecutive games, scored the game’s initial run in the first when Erik Korsmo led off with a single and tallied on Luke Marshall’s ground out. Marshall also drove in Whitman’s other run with a single in the ninth inning.

The Lutes scored twice in the first inning and broke the game open with five in the third and two more in the fourth. Post, Aratani and Sales all had run-producing hits in a third inning rally that was aided by three Whitman errors and Gabler and Aratani both drove in runs in the fourth. PLU’s final run came in the seventh on Kris Hansen’s double and a single by Sammy Davis.

Robert Bleecker improved his pitching record to 5-0, allowing two runs on five hits in five innings. Jeremy Ellison pitched three innings, allowing only one hit, and Jeff Danforth closed the game in the ninth for PLU. Joe Rodhouse saw his record fall to 0-6 for the Missionaries as he allowed 10 runs, seven earned, on 13 hits in seven innings.

- PLU -