Seattle University baseball dropped a weekend Western Athletic Conference (WAC) series in Bakersfield against CSU Bakersfield.
Griffin Andreychuk slides into second base.
They lost the first two games of the series, but avoided the sweep with a Sunday win. All of the games were closely contested, with none of them being decided by more than 3 runs.
The Redhawks lost the first game of the series 7-6, after junior Janson Junk let up 4 runs in eighth inning to give up the lead. Junk has been a starter all season long, but Head Coach Donny Harrel has elected to use him out of the bullpen of late. Starter Jake Prizina went 7.1 innings and gave up 3 runs.
In the second game, the Redhawks tried to rally for a win in the ninth inning, as they have done all season, but this one fell just short. They scored 2 runs in the frame to cut the deficit to 5-3, but they would strike out with the tying run at the plate to end the game.
The Redhawks tallied just six hits on the game, with two of them coming from freshman Austin Lively.
In the third game, the offense got back on track, picking up 18 hits and nine runs in a 9-6 victory. Tyler Oldenberg earned the win in his second start of the season, striking out three and allowing just 2 earned runs in five innings of work. Seven different batters had at least two hits on the game. Lively went 3-5 with 2 runs scored and 2 driven in to improve his team leading batting average to .356. Dalton Hurd finished with three hits as well, while Kyler Murphy and Cameron Sterne each drove in 2 runs.
Senior Griffin Andreychuk finished the game 1-4, but with his single in the sixth inning, he tied the Seattle U baseball program record with 212 hits. Andreychuk has four more games in the season to break the record.
The Redhawks sit in a four-way tie for sixth place in the conference. The top six teams make the tournament, but first place Grand Canyon can’t go to the tournament as a part of their acceptance into the WAC. The Redhawks have four games left to play themselves into the tournament. After a season full of injuries and disappointment, they still have a chance to salvage it and play themselves into the tournament for a chance at a WAC Championship.
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