REDLANDS, Calif. – The University of Redlands Baseball team wrapped up their three-game series with Willamette University Sunday morning picking up the 7-1 win, which spanned seven innings.
The Bulldogs move back to .500 at 2-2 and finish the series 1-2 against the Bearcats. Nathan Buchan (Mercer Island, WA) was dominate on the mound going six-innings strong giving up a run on three hits, while striking out two.
The game did not start on the right foot for the lefty Buchan, as he allowed a double to the Bearcats leadoff hitter. He would then come around and score after tagging up on a pair of flyouts.
This run would be the only bump in the road as the UR offense got three runs back in the bottom half of the first thanks to RBI-singles from Jared Anderson (Gilbert, AZ) and Jake Burgess (Riverside, CA). The third run came from Kaiya Saito (Bellevue, WA) who was able to beat out a double play to get the fielder's choice RBI allowing Max Clark (Fontana, CA) to score.
Luke De Vries (Irvine, CA) tacked on a fourth run in the second with an RBI-groundout that scored Patrick Perez (Ontario, CA).
In the third the Bulldogs made their lead a comfortable six runs thanks to a solo shot from Clark and a two-run single to left from Will Cell (Seattle, WA). For Clark, it was his first home run of the season and his 17th of his career.
Omar Barraza (San Mateo, CA) came on in the ninth for his first pitching appearance of the season as he struck out one Bearcat in route to his first save on the season.
As a whole, Buchan and Barraza held the Bearcats to three hits and only walked one while the offense had nine hits led by Esteban Nakashima (Riverside, CA) who was 2-for-4 with a run scored and Clark was 2-for-3, scoring twice and driving in another.
Redlands will have exactly one week off following four games in 48 hours as they will host the University of Puget Sound for a single game on Sunday, February 12 with first pitch set for 11:00 a.m.