WHITTIER, Calif.—The Carleton College baseball team held on for its first victory of the year, besting Whittier College 8-7 on a rainy day in California. Jackson Tears (Fy./Trabuco Canyon, Calif./JSerra) picked up the victory with 5.1 innings of work for his first collegiate win. Offensively, the Knights had three players with multiple hits and totaled double digit hits as a team for the second consecutive game.
The Knights (1-8) got on the board in the first inning on a RBI groundout from Jeff Dsida (Fy./Winnetka, Ill./New Trier). The Poets (12-11) answered in the bottom half of the inning, tying the game with a run of their own.
In the fourth, the Knights loaded the bases on Alex Wirta’s (Jr./Corte Madera, Calif./Redwood) second double of the game, a Dsida walk, and a Patrick Philley (Jr./Gig Harbor, Wash./Charles Wright Academy) bunt single with nobody out. Carleton cashed in two runs via Erik Fabry’s (Jr./Apple Valley, Minn./Eastview) sacrifice fly and Clay Parrish’s (Jr./Westport, Conn./Staples) two-out single up the middle.
Following a Whittier run in the fifth, Carleton scored five in the sixth inning on four hits and an error. Parrish picked up another RBI on his first double of the year scoring David Stillerman (Fy./Evanston, Ill.) all the way from first base. After a single and a walk, Kiyota Gomi (Jr./Dobbs Ferry, N.Y./Ardsley) reached on a throwing error by the second baseman. While the Poets were arguing the call at first base, senior David Ames (Riverwoods, Ill./Deerfield) alertly scampered home, beating the throw by a step. The Knights were not done in the inning as Dsida came through with a two-out, two-run double to push the lead to 8-2.
The Poets chased Tears (1-1) from the game in the bottom of the stanza as the rookie struggled to find the strike zone. After Whittier scored a run after Tears hit a batter, Danny Shields (Fy./Richfield, Minn./Holy Angels) entered in relief, limiting the damage to only one more run.
The Knights almost saw their lead evaporate in the seventh as the Poets threatened to tie the game. Andrew Vallejo blasted a homerun to centerfield on the first pitch of the inning to trim the deficit to three. After two more hits and a walk the Poets had the tying run on base, but after a fielder’s choice, Shields was able to strand the tying run on third base.
Stranding the runner would be important as the rain started to come down forcing a 10-minute rain delay. The Poets tried to prep the field after a slight lull in the downpour but the field conditions remained too sloppy, and the game was halted after seven innings.
The day’s second game against Occidental College was also washed out and tentatively re-scheduled for Wednesday.
The Knights will be back in action March 22, against Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif. First pitch is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. PST/4:30 p.m. CST.
