LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The Cal Lutheran baseball team needed extra innings for the second straight day to edge Occidental 7-5 in game one, before blowing out the Tigers 14-0 in game two at Anderson Field on Saturday afternoon.
With the sweep, the Kingsmen improve their conference record to 17-7 and currently sit in a three-way tie for first place in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) standings with Pomona-Pitzer and La Verne. It is the third straight season that CLU will have at least a share of the best record heading into Round Robin play.
In the second inning, Davey Casciola continued his hot hitting against the Tigers with a double to right field to drive in Nick Cohan, who led off the inning with a single to center. After Casciola advanced to third on an error, Max Price drove a ball deep enough to left field to bring him home and give CLU an early 2-0 lead.
Casciola was not finished there, and picked up another RBI hit in the third inning, while Collin Crowl came up with a sacrifice fly to drive in Cohan and give the Kingsmen a 4-0 advantage.
Occidental slowly chipped away at the lead after a solo homerun from Jonathan Brooks, and a two-run fifth inning to cut the Violet and Gold's lead to one, 4-3.
In the seventh inning, Casciola produced another RBI double to drive in Cohan and added some separation, but the Tigers tied the game after responding with two runs in the bottom half of the frame.
After heading into extra innings for the second straight game, the Kingsmen pulled ahead in the top of the eleventh. Gabe Gunter led off with a single to left and then a pair of errors on a ball hit by Casciola allowed both runners to score and give CLU a 7-5 lead and the eventual win.
In game two, the Kingsmen jumped out to a 5-0 lead after the first inning and never looked back. After a four-run second inning, CLU led 9-0 and added one more run in the fifth before tacking on four in the seventh to end the game via mercy rule.
Seven different players drove in a run led by Chris Whitmer, Kyle Sanchez and Casciola who had three RBIs apiece while Whitmer and Casciola were joined by Jeff Rebello and Justin Caña with doubles.
Marshall Pautsch (5-1) picked up the win after throwing five innings and allowing no runs while striking out three. Mitchell Shields and Nate Wehner also pitched scoreless innings of relief to close out the game.
Casciola had a monster performance in the two games going 7-for-10 with seven RBIs and three runs scored. Sanchez finished 4-for-8 with three RBIs and Cañaalso added four hits with two runs scored.
After locking up the top seed, after tiebreakers, for the Round Robin portion of the schedule, Cal Lutheran (25-10, 17-7 SCIAC) will be on the road this Wednesday, Apr. 18 against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps at 3:00 p.m.
Box Score: CLU 7, OXY 5
Box Score: CLU 14, OXY 0
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