REDLANDS, Calif. – The University of Redlands Baseball team (5-4, 1-2 SCIAC) surrendered a 6-1 seventh-inning lead as they fell 9-7 to the University of La Verne (ULV) Friday afternoon at The Yard.
Tyler Reiter (San Diego, CA) and the Bulldogs' offense got off to a quick start, scoring the first two runs of the game in the first thanks to an RBI-single from Jared Anderson (Gilbert, AZ) and a sacrifice fly to center by reigning Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Hitter of the Week, Ian Umscheid (Beaumont, CA). Luke De Vries (Irvine, CA) and Esteban Nakashima (Riverside, CA) each scored on the plays.
After Reiter struck out five Leopards in the first four innings, the Bulldogs gave him some more breathing room in the fourth when De Vries drove in Cade McClelland (Mission Viejo, CA) for their third run of the game. McClelland had reached earlier with a triple to dead center.
Jake Burgess (Riverside, CA) made it 4-0 in the fifth on a single that stayed inside the third base line plating Max Clark (Fontana, CA).
La Verne would scratch across their first run of the game, an unearned run, in the sixth when they hit a sacrifice fly to De Vries in center.
The Bulldogs got the run back in the bottom half of the inning thanks to a throwing error by the Leopard catcher who threw behind the runner at third, which allowed Clark and Anderson to both score extending the lead to five, 6-1.
With Reiter out of the game in the seventh, the Leopards scored five times to tie the game at six. They had a pair of run-scoring singles and a sacrifice fly. They then tied it on a pair of errors on one play, which allowed two runners to come in.
De Vries continued his great game with a lead-taking single to left field that scored pinch-runner Sean McCance (Irvine, CA) in the bottom of the seventh.
Nate Helton (Menifee, CA), who came in to get the final out of the seventh, got through the eighth, facing the minimum five batters. After a scoreless bottom of the inning the Bulldogs went into the ninth leading by one, 7-6.
But the top of the inning saw four of the first five Leopard batters reach as they would score the game-tying run and had the bases loaded with one out. A fielder's choice that Helton got the force out at home put runners on the corners with two down and the game still tied. But La Verne would take their first lead of the game thanks to a wild pitch and a pop-up that drifted back into fair play landing only 10 feet from home plate as La Verne got their second and third runs of the inning, which helped them take game one of the series 9-7.
De Vries tied for a game-high with three hits and had two of the Bulldogs five RBI's. Anderson, Clark, Burgess, and McClelland all had two hits as the Bulldogs collected 13 hits as a team.
On the mound starter Reiter went six-plus innings and allowed only one run, unearned, and struck out five with no walks. Helton was charged with the loss after going 2.0 Innings giving up three runs on three hits. He drops to 0-3 on the season.
The Bulldogs and Leopards end the series tomorrow, Saturday, March 4 in La Verne, CA with a road doubleheader which kicks off at 11:00 a.m.