COSTA MESA, Calif. - The Vanguard University Baseball team (14-2, 5-1) pushed their win streak to five games against Willliam Jessup University (8-4, 0-2) in the first half of a four-game series between the two teams. Game one was featured lots of offense as the Lions earned a 13-7 victory while Michael Kashou was fantastic in game number two, a 4-2 victory, as he earned his fourth win of the season.
What Happened?
Game One: The Warriors were able to put a run on the board in the top of the third as the first two batters were able to get on. After a balk advanced the runners, Kawaiola Takemura hit a deep fly to left and Max Modeste took off for home. Buckson's throw was right on the money but the home plate umpire determined that obstruction occurred at the plate, much to the ire of Head Coach Rob Pegg. Nevertheless, the call stood and the Warriors held a 1-0 lead in the middle of the third.
Lions loaded the bases in the bottom of the frame and Joe Johnson would take one for the team as a fastball to the shin would bring home Land from third. WJU's Danny Chavez would get out of the inning without any further trouble as he forced a groundout to end the inning. With runners on the corners in the top of the fourth, Dante Peretti would hit a single that just trickled through the right side to score Jordan Yu from third to take a 2-1 lead in the top of the fourth.
A leadoff single by Grady Conner and a double by Aki Buckson to deep left would put two runners in scoring position with no outs in the bottom of the fourth. Matt Land and Chad Sutton would take turns bringing in those batters with hard-hit ground balls. Sutton would advance to third courtesy of a wild pitch and a mad dash home off of a fielder's choice from Luke Arias to take a 4-2 lead.
With two on and one out in the bottom of the fifth a wild sequence of events would result in an RBI single for Sutton. The offensive surge would continue on in the bottom of the seventh as Conner hit his fifth home run of the year, and Landon Riker brought two runners in with an RBI single up the middle to push the Pride's advantage to 10-2.
William Jessup would counter with five runs of their own in the top of the eighth as they loaded the bases and walked two in while RBI singles brought in two more to cut their deficit to three. The Lions would put together a two-out rally in the bottom of the frame as Land and Sutton singled. Luke Arias would proceed to knock a three-run shot to deep left, his second home run in two games, to give Vanguard a 13-7 lead.
Game Two: Mike Shoenberg would knock a leadoff home run for the Warriors in the top of the first, but the Lions would immediately counter with two runs of their own in the bottom of the frame with Omar Ortiz's second homer of the year. Vanguard would tack on two more runs in the bottom of the second as Landon Riker tripled with two on and one out to go up 4-1. Andrew Schmitt had a fantastic diving catch to open up the action in the sixth inning, but the Warriors were able to cut their deficit to two in the same inning as Dante Peretti hit a double to right-center to score Yu from second.
Michael Kashou would only allow three hits over 6.1 innings pitched while only allowing one earned run and striking out ten batters, moving to 4-0 on the year. Matt Lester would earn his second save of the year as he struck out one and forced a ground out to end the game.
Why It's Important? With the win, Vanguard now owns a five-game win streak and moved to 14-2, the last time that the Lions started a season 14-2 was back in 2019. The Pride's all-time record moves to 18-6 against William Jessup.
Top Performers: Grady Conner went 4-8 with two runs, two RBI, and one home run on the day while Chad Sutton went 3-6 with three runs and two RBI. Luke Arias would hit his second home run in two games, a three-run shot in the first game and Omar Ortiz would hit his second home run of the year in the second game.
What They Said: Luke Arias talked about his game one home run, saying "I was just looking for a good pitch to hit, think I saw a fastball, curveball, and then he threw a fastball again and I just had a great swing on it. As a team I think we're in a good place, we scored a bunch of runs in the first game. We are hoping to sweep this weekend so I think we're in good shape for that and the rest of the season."
What's Next: The final two games of the four-game series will take place on Saturday, February 27th with the first game starting at 11:00 a.m.
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