COSTA MESA -- Vanguard baseball captured one win out of the two games against Hawaii Pacific in Pacific West Conference baseball on the Dean Harvey Field Friday. The scoring in game one all came in the first inning, and the VU defense and pitching held court the rest of the game to win 2-1, though HPU snared game two 6-3. The Lions went to 12-29 overall and 9-26 in PacWest action, while Hawaii Pacific went to 22-18, 20-14.
What Happened? The Sharks jumped ahead 1-0 against
Shamir Marshall, as a walk and a hit batter put two aboard for HPU, with a bad throw on a stolen base allowing the guests to surge ahead. Any fear of yesterday's slug fest being repeated was soon quenched, as Marshall got a strikeout and a pop out to retire the side. The offense then put the Blue and Gold ahead for good, with
Bennett Vondrak getting hit by a pitch to begin the rally.
Tristan Gallegos then belted a triple to the right-center gap, easily scoring Vondrak, and a groundout by
Joshua Sur brought in Gallegos to make the score 2-1 VU.
Marshall held the Sharks hitless through four frames, and after HPU got its first in the fifth,
Dylan Henson came in and held the Sharks off the board the rest of the way.
Marshall picked up his first Vanguard win and improved to 1-2 while fanning four Hawaii Pacific hitters. Henson punched out two and picked up his second save. The Lions had a 5-2 edge in hits in game one, with five different players recording them. HPU had four errors to VU's two in the opening meeting of the day.
Game 2
Christopher Ceballos saw the Sharks take another first-inning lead, as Hawaii Pacific scored one run on a pair of singles, but he rebounded to escape the inning with the bases loaded. However, three HPU runs in the second and one in the third put the team ahead 5-0. Despite that, the Lions slowly chipped away at the deficit.
The squad tallied two runs in the bottom of the fourth as both
Jaxson Davis and
James Derflinger launched home runs into the netting above the fence in left field, putting the gap at 5-2. A leadoff single by
Angel Perez in the sixth started the next scoring phase, which was followed by a wild pitch that got him to second base. A single by Davis allowed Perez to hustle home, which put VU down 5-3.
But an error by VU in the top of the seventh cost the Lions a run, and HPU closed out the game for a 6-3 victory.
Hawaii Pacific had six runs on five hits and one error, while Vanguard had three runs, seven hits, and four errors. Each team left six runners on base. Davis had a 2-for-3 game and two RBI to lead VU from the plate. Ceballos dropped to 1-3, and he and
Seth Wrightstone, who finished out the game for the Blue and Gold, each had two Ks.
What's Next? The Blue and Gold conclude the series with a 1:00 p.m. game tomorrow.
