The Sea Lions needed a sweep of their four game series with California Baptist in order to repeat as Golden State Athletic Conference champions. The Lancers took away all of the suspense, however, by defeating PLNU in the opening game of the regular season-ending series, 10-1 at Carroll B. Land Stadium Wednesday afternoon.
NAIA No. 5-ranked CBU (38-12, 27-6 GSAC), claimed the 2010 conference crown with the win while the tenth-ranked Sea Lions fell to 33-13-1, 22-11 GSAC. The Lancers will host the GSAC Tournament in Riverside, starting on May 10. PLNU remains second in the GSAC standings, a game ahead of Vanguard which lost to Concordia Wednesday.
California Baptist plated three first inning runs off of Sea Lion ace
Steven Winnick. The senior was unusually wild, walking the second batter of the game and then throwing a pair of wild pitches and hitting the next batter. Sharif Othman singled past
Wes Kartch at third to drive in the first run and Zach Hedges followed with a two-run single.
Tyler Kuehl drove in PLNU leadoff man
Allen Boyer with a hit in the bottom of the frame to close the gap, but it just wasn't Winnick's day. Hedges collected another two-run single in the third to put the Lancers ahead 5-1 and Garrett Rau delivered an RBI single in both the fourth and sixth that gave CBU a six-run lead. The Lancers tacked on three insurance runs in the ninth to close out the day's scoring.
CBU starter Taylor Siemens (9-1) cruised through the PLNU lineup, yielding just one run on four hits. The lefty walked five and struck out six. CBU used two other pitchers over the final 2.2 frames.
Winnick dropped to 8-3 after giving up seven runs (six earned) in 5.2 innings, his second shortest stint of the season.
Josh Dexheimer tossed 1.1 scoreless innings before giving way to
Adam Herter to start the seventh.
The Sea Lions had just five total hits in the game, two from Kuehl. PLNU was sloppy on defense, committing four errors and failing to make a couple other makeable plays.
Point Loma will play their final home game of the year on Thursday when they host the Lancers at 3:00 pm. Ten Sea Lion seniors are to be honored before first pitch.
