No. 7 Oxy Falls at CMS

Recap, photo courtesy of Occidental College

CLAREMONT — The No. 7 Occidental baseball team's pursuit for its first SCIAC Championship since 1982 will have to wait until the weekend.

The Tigers fell at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 6-2 on Wednesday, meaning their magic number with Cal Lutheran remains at two with three games to play. Any combination of Oxy wins and/or Cal Lu losses that adds to two clinches at least a share of the title for the Tigers.

Season Impact: Oxy falls to 28-7 overall and 20-5 in SCIAC play.

Oxy has already secured a spot in the four-team SCIAC Postseason Tournament that determines the
conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament, but not the conference champion.
If Oxy wins the SCIAC Championship, it will host the four-team double elimination SCIAC Tournament at Anderson Field on May 6-8.

Oxy first year lefty Will Martel struck out the first three batters of the game, but then ran into trouble, giving up three runs on eight hits in 3.1 innings pitched. CMS scored two in the second, one in the fourth and three more in the fifth, opening up a 6-0 lead.

The Tigers' bats didn't wake up until it was too late. Oxy got one run back in the sixth and another in the eighth.

Jack Brancheau went 3 for 4 with an RBI single, Devon DeRaad was 1 for 3 with a run and Bryan Smith was 1 for 3 with an RBI single for Oxy.

Martel was charged with the loss.

Sam Baughman earned the victory for the Stags, throwing seven solid innings with two earned runs against him.

Oxy's Scott Ericksen looked sharp in 2.2 innings of no-hit relief.

Nolan Anderson led CMS offensively, finishing a single short of the cycle with three runs scored and two RBIs.

Remaining Games:
Saturday, April 30 - Occidental at Pomona-Pitzer 3 p.m.
Sunday, May 1 - Whittier at Occidental 11 a.m.
Sunday, May 1 - Caltech at Occidental 3 p.m.