TACOMA, Wash. – Twice Saturday Whitman College's baseball team was within one-half inning of victory, but heartbreak followed in the bottom of those half innings as host University of Puget Sound stole a pair of 4-3 Northwest Conference victories over the Missionaries at Logger Field behind a pair of walk-off home runs.
Whitman (4-18, 3-11 NWC) led Puget Sound (12-11, 10-5) by a score of 3-2 entering the bottom of the ninth in Game 1 but a two-out, two-run shot over the center-field wall lifted the Loggers to the victory. Game 2 went 12 innings before Puget Sound walked off with the win after a one-out home run cleared the fence in left field.
In each game Whitman clawed back from early deficits.
A lead-off single up the middle from
Jonny Chow became the tying run in the bottom of the third inning of Saturday's opener as Chow, who had moved to third on a pair of infield ground-outs, scored on
Anthony Lim's RBI-single to right field.
The Missionaries broke in front on
Tristan Cates' RBI-double to left that brought in
Nick Johnson, only to have the Loggers draw even in the bottom of the frame.
Johnson factored into Whitman's go-ahead run in the top of the eighth when he trotted home from third on
MacLean Harned's bases-loaded single to short, center field.
The late-innings drama had only begun, though, as UPS picked up a two-out double from Nick Funyak off reliever
Henry Lin, and then the back-breaking home run from Troy Kakugawa.
Robert Maislin was the hard-luck starter for Whitman, throwing seven full innings and surrendering just a pair of runs on four hits and a walk while striking out four. In the other dugout, Puget Sound's David Torigoe was in the right place at the right time coming on in relief with one out in the eighth, after which he allowed just a hit and a walk to earn the win on Kakugawa's dinger.
The teams went extra innings tied at 3-3 in the nightcap.
Puget Sound broke out to a 3-0 lead with Johnson starting on the mound for Whitman, but the Missionaries scored once in the fifth then added two more in the seventh to knot the score at 3-3.
Lim's two-out, bases-jammed single through the right side pushed
John Lyon home in Whitman's half of the fifth inning. The tying runs in the seventh were both unearned but the Missionaries earned their way onto the base paths.
Lyon led off with a double to the gap in right-center then moved up a base with a Harned single down the left-field line.
Court Osborn then worked Loggers starter Steve Wagar for a walk to load the bases.
Two miscues from the Loggers then allowed Whitman to tie the game. A passed ball moved all three runners up, bringing Lyon home, and then an infield error on
Anthony Lim's rap to the first-baseman allowed Harned to score.
A pitching change by the Loggers eventually ended the threat but Whitman had bounced back from its three-run deficit.
Each team totaled a pair of non-threatening singles over the eighth, ninth and 10th innings, and then neither posed a threat in the 11th. Whitman put base-runners on in the top of the 12th but Lim was left stranded at second and Cates at first, setting up another frightful finish in the bottom of the frame when Nathan Baker connected on a
Steven Ainsworth offering to close out the win.
Johnson's efforts on the mound lasted nine innings as he allowed two earned and one unearned run off five hits. He struck out four and didn't issue a walk before giving way to Ainsworth at the start of the 10th.
Joshua Zavisbuin pitched the 12th, allowing Lim's single and walking Cates, but extinguished the threat and earned the win with Backes' homer.
Lim finished the day with five hits for Whitman while Chow collected four hits, scored once and added an RBI.
The same teams head back to Logger Field Sunday afternoon for the closing match-up of the three-game set in Tacoma.
