April 24, 2007

BASEBALL: Lutes Need One Win in Three Games for NWC Crown

THIS WEEK: Pacific Lutheran hosts Puget Sound in a three-game Northwest Conference series. The teams play a doubleheader starting at noon Saturday and conclude the series with a single game starting at noon on Sunday.

GOING FOR THE TITLE: Pacific Lutheran, 29-7 overall, currently leads the Northwest Conference with an 18-3 record and is seeking the program's first outright conference title since Pacific Lutheran College won consecutive Evergreen Conference championships in 1953-54. Pacific Lutheran has never won a Northwest Conference championship. The Lutes currently are two games ahead of George Fox in the loss column, and the Bruins have completed their conference schedule with a 19-5 record. Heading into this weekend’s series against Puget Sound, the Lutes will need to win one of the three games in order to share the conference championship and take the NWC’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs. Should PLU and George Fox tie for the conference title, the Lutes get the spot at the regional tournament because they swept George Fox during the regular season. If the Lutes win at least two of the games, they will claim the conference title outright, and with it the tournament berth.

HISTORY LESSON: Since becoming a full-time Northwest Conference member in 1966, Pacific Lutheran has finished as high as second only one time, that in 1994. (That year, the Lutes finished 26-16 overall, setting what was then a school record for wins in a season. The 2007 Lutes have shattered that record.) The ’94 Lutes finished 12-6 in the conference and in a second-place tie with Willamette. Linfield won the title that year with a 15-3 record. More recently, George Fox has won outright or shared eight of the last 10 Northwest Conference titles, including five in a row. The only team to win a conference championship besides the Bruins is Willamette, which won the championship in 1998 and 2001.

LUTES AND LOGGERS, HEAD-TO-HEAD: Pacific Lutheran and Puget Sound have faced each other three times this season with PLU winning all three of the non-conference contests. The Lutes beat the Loggers 12-6 on Feb. 11 at UPS, 9-5 on March 21 at PLU, and 10-0 on March 28, again at PLU.

ABOUT THE LOGGERS: The Loggers are 16-18-1 overall and are in fourth place in the NWC with a 13-8 record. The Loggers have won four of their last six games with one of those losses coming against No. 2-ranked Chapman by a 6-2 score. Michael Olson leads the team with a .373 batting average, 12th best in the NWC. He also has 13 doubles, three home runs and 26 RBIs this season. Joe Newland has a league-leading 10 home runs and is hitting .314 with 27 runs and 34 RBIs. Ryan Gustafson leads the UPS pitching staff with a 6-1 record. He has a 4.71 ERA in more than 70 innings of work and has thrown three complete games for the Loggers.

KAEL IS NAILS: On Saturday afternoon, when the team needed him most, senior Kael Fisher had his best performance as a Lute in his three years with the program. Whitworth had just taken a 5-4 win in the first game of a doubleheader, becoming the first conference school this season to beat PLU ace Joe DiPietro. With PLU’s loss-column advantage over George Fox down to two games, Fisher pitched his first complete game as a Lute, shutting out the Pirates on four hits while striking out 12 and walking just two. Because of that performance, Fisher is the Northwest Conference Pitcher of the Week. Fisher is 4-0 this year with a 3.03 earned run average. After seeing little action as a reliever due to control problems, the senior right-hander from Everett starting finding the strike zone. He earned his first start in the March 28 non-conference game against Puget Sound and picked up the win, striking out nine batters and allowing only three hits in six innings. In 29 1/3 innings this season, Fisher has limited opposing batters to a .180 average.

LUTES TAKE TWO-OF-THREE AT WHITWORTH: Pacific Lutheran closed to the doorstep of its first conference baseball crown in more than 50 years by breaking away late for a 14-3 win over Whitworth in the final game of a three-game Northwest Conference series at Merkel Field. Whitworth won Saturday’s opener, 5-4, before the Lutes came back for a 14-0 win. PLU won the rubber match on Sunday and reduced its “magic number” to one. In Sunday’s finale, the Lutes scored 13 of their runs over the final three innings to improve to 29-7 overall and 18-3 in the NWC. PLU's Brett Brunner and the Pirates' Ryan Snell were locked in a tight pitchers' dual through six innings as the Lutes led 1-0. The Lutes scored their first run on back-to-back doubles by Brandon Sales and Jared Simon in the third inning. Snell finally gave up two more in the seventh on an RBI single by Tyler Green and a run-scoring double from Justin Whitehall for a 3-0 PLU advantage. The Lutes scored three more against the Pirate bullpen in the eighth, two of which came home on Ryan Thorne's double. After Whitworth scored three times in the bottom of the eighth, the Lutes broke the game open with eight runs in the ninth. Nearly all of the runs were unearned after an error at third base allowed the inning to continue. PLU pounced on the opportunity when Jordan Post drove home two with a double to right. After a walk and hit batter, Logan Andrews deposited a grand slam over the right field wall for the final runs of the game. Brandon Sales had three hits to lead PLU, while Thorne, Whitehall, and Jared Simon each had a pair. Andrews drove in four runs. In Saturday’s series opener, Whitworth ended a pair of long PLU winning streaks with a 5-4 victory. Pacific Lutheran’s 10-game win streak and a 15-game NWC streak both came to an end, as did a run of six consecutive wins for starting pitcher Joe DiPietro against conference opponents. The Lutes took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Tyler Green, who had doubled to lead off the inning, scored on Kris Hansen's fielder's choice. Whitworth rallied for four runs in the third against DiPietro, the 2006 NWC Pitcher of the Year. Dan Ramsey singled home two of the runs and Joel Tampien followed with his fifth home run of the season to drive in Ramsey. It was only the second long ball allowed by DiPietro all season. Tampien added a sacrifice fly in the seventh that brought home Jon Whiteside for a 5-1 Pirate lead. Jordan Post doubled home Ryan Thorne in the top of the eighth, then scored on Green's single to make the score 5-3. Chris Bowen hit a ninth-inning home run to pull PLU within 5-4, but that’s how the game ended. The first-place Lutes wasted little time putting its first loss in 10 games behind it, jumping to a 12-0 lead after four innings and cruising to a 14-0 win behind Fisher's first complete game of the season. In going the distance to improve to 4-0, Fisher allowed only four hits and struck out 12 batters with only two walks. Matt Akridge led off the game with his first home run of the season. Then in the third, Green hit a grand slam to highlight a seven-run inning. It was Green's seventh homer of the year. Akridge added an RBI single later in the third. PLU scored four more in the fourth inning to lead 12-0. Kris Hansen had an RBI single to start the scoring and Brandon Sales finished it with a two-run home run, his fourth of the season. Tim Young led off the 9th with his first home run of the season for the Lutes Logan Andrews led PLU with three hits, while Akridge, Thorne, Post, Whitehall and Hansen all had two for the Lutes, who totaled 17 in the game.

GOING, GOING, GONE: Say “goodbye baseball” to the PLU single-season home run record. The Lutes clubbed six homers against Whitworth last weekend and have 29 for the season, surpassing the old record of 27 set by the 1990 Lutes. Senior Tyler Green, who set a single-game record with three “dingers” against British Columbia back on Feb. 23, leads the team with seven homers. Seniors Jared Simon and Justin Whitehall and sophomores Brandon Sales and Jordan Post all have four home runs this season. The 2007 baseball team has also set season records in runs, doubles, and runs batted in. PLU has scored 291 runs this season, surpassing the 276 runs scored by the 2005 team. Another 2005 record is gone - this year's team has 266 RBI compared to the old record of 227. Finally, the 2007 Lutes have clubbed 78 doubles, one more than the number hit by the 2002 squad.

MASTER THIEF: Earlier this season, senior centerfielder Ryan Thorne broke the program’s single-season record for stolen bases when he swiped number 30, sending him past David Sandberg, who had 29 steals in 1994. Thorne added two more steals against Whitworth to push his record-setting mark to 33 on the year.

WHITEHALL PUTS HIS NAME IN THE RECORD BOOKS: Justin Whitehall has entered the record books as the all-time career leader in RBIs, passing Jason Chennault who had 104 RBIs between 1997 and 2000. This season, Whitehall is hitting .287 with 39 hits, 10 doubles, four home runs and 36 RBIs.

RANKINGS: After winning five of their last six games, not much has changed for the Lutes as far as national recognition. In the American Baseball Coaches Association/Collegiate Baseball NCAA Division III Baseball Poll, the Lutes remain 14th nationally and third in the West Region. Chapman (30-5) and Texas Lutheran (30-7-1) are ranked ahead of the Lutes in the region poll. The rankings are released every two weeks.

LUTES ON THE AIR: Pacific Lutheran’s games against Puget Sound will be broadcast on KLAY 1180 AM. The Saturday doubleheader goes on the air at 12:30 and the Sunday game goes on at 1 p.m. Pacific Northwest broadcasting legend Bob Robertson will handle the play-by-play.

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