April 14, 2007

Records Broken, Tied as Lutes Sweep Baseball Twinbill from Whitman

Game One
Game Two

Ryan Thorne - sets stolen base record

Justin Whitehall - career RBI leader

TACOMA, Wash. – Several Pacific Lutheran baseball season and career records were either tied or broken on Saturday as the Lutes swept a Northwest Conference doubleheader from the visiting Whitman Missionaries.

The Lutes won the opener, 4-2, behind the pitching of Joe DiPietro, and they took the second game, 11-4, with Jared Simon hitting a second-inning grand slam (pictured below). With the wins, the Lutes improve to 26-6 overall, and they also maintain their Northwest Conference lead with a 15-2 record. Whitman is now 5-23 overall and 3-14 in the conference.

The Lutes’ 26th win ties a single-season win record set during the 1994 season, and there are seven games remaining in the 2007 regular season. DiPietro improved his pitching record to 9-1, tying him for the most pitching victories in a season, and the senior from Yakima figures to have two more regular season starts. Brian Farman established the record for wins in 1999.

Senior centerfielder Ryan Thorne broke the program’s single-season record for stolen bases when he swiped third base in the seventh inning of the opener, giving him 30 and sending him past David Sandberg, who had 29 steals in 1994. Thorne added another steal in the second game.

DiPietro allowed only two hits and struck out nine in recording his fourth complete game in six conference starts. He is 6-0 against conference opponents.

In scoring their two runs in the fourth, the Missionaries tallied the most runs against DiPietro in a conference game this season. DiPietro hit Luke Marshall with a pitch to lead off the inning, and Marshall moved up a base on Austin Shackelford’s infield single. Matt Morris-Rosenfeld advanced both runners with a sacrifice bunt, and Marshall scored on a groundout by Derek Clovis. Michael Lazcano drove in Shackelford with a base hit to right field.

The two-run rally gave the Missionaries, last in the conference, a 2-0 lead over the conference-leading Lutes. PLU got an unearned run back in the fourth on a pair of Whitman errors, and it took the lead in the fifth with two more runs. Jared Simon, who led off with a single, scored on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Tyler Green, and Roger Guzman scored on a two-out infield error.

PLU closed out the scoring with a run in the seventh when Guzman led off with a single and eventually scored on Green’s second sacrifice fly of the game.

Pat Johnston was the hard-luck losing pitcher for Whitman, falling to 1-8 for the season despite allowing only five singles in eight innings of work.

Pacific Lutheran had no such offensive troubles in the second game, ripping 14 hits against a pair of Whitman hurlers. Justin Whitehall, who last week established a PLU career record with 105 runs batted in, drove in the game’s first tally with a single. Simon followed later in the inning with the grand slam, his fourth homer of the year, giving the Lutes a 5-0 lead after two innings. They added six more runs on six hits and a Whitman error in the fifth inning. Whitehall drove in two runs with a double, and Logan Andrews and Brandon Sales both had run-scoring singles in the inning.

Whitman made the most of three hits and three walks to score all four of its runs in the seventh inning. The Missionaries finished the game with five hits. Starting pitcher Sean Day allowed 11 earned runs in four innings and is now 1-3 this season.

Kael Fisher picked up his third win against no defeats for the Lutes, giving up only three hits and all four runs while pitching 6 1/3 innings. Hunter Simpson finished the game, giving up a pair of hits and walks.

Whitehall had three of the Lutes’ 14 hits and he also drove in three runs. Green, Andrews, Kris Hanson and Sales all contributed two hits apiece for the winners.

The teams finish their three-game series with a single game starting at noon on Sunday.

- PLU -