SAN DIEGO - Kellen Sheppard, Nathan Bennett and Coleman Huntley III combined on a three-hit shutout to lead the Point Loma baseball team past Cal State LA 1-0 (Feb. 12).
 
The Sea Lions have now won back-to-back games at home to improve to 2-3 on the season. The Golden Eagles dropped to 1-4 with the loss.
 
Sheppard went six shutout innings, allowing only three hits and a walk while striking out four. He retired 11 straight batters between the second and fifth innings. The only threat by CSULA off Sheppard came in the sixth when Ryan Welker reached third base with one out. But Sheppard got a foul out to third base and a strike out to end the threat.
 
"Sheppard competed and was ahead in the counts early," said Point Loma head coach Schaefer. "He located all game long and did a great job retiring their leadoff batter each inning. He did an outstanding job just competing out there."
 
Sheppard gave way to the bullpen in the seventh. Nathan Bennett pitched two scoreless innings and Coleman Huntley came in for his second save in two days. That save gave Huntley a share of the school record for career saves. The senior from Grass Valley, Calif., has 15 saves in his two seasons with the Sea Lions, which included leading NCAA Division II during the 2015 regular season with 15 saves.
 
"Bennett has been doing a great job in that seventh and eighth inning role," said Schaefer. "He is getting ahead in counts and keeping the ball down in the zone. He isn't afraid to get ground ball outs and that is what we need late in the game.
 
"Coleman has been doing it a long time. He is gutsy and he has been sharp the last two days which is an excellent sign," continued Schaefer. "The pitching staff has done a great job this week and last week. We will get the offense rolling here soon, but the pitching has done an outstanding job."
 
Point Loma did just enough offensively to earn the win. Derek Rustich earned leadoff walk and then Joseph Keller doubled down the left field line to put runners at second and third with no outs. Michael Gordner quickly took advantage of the RBI opportunity by chopping a ball to second to score Rustich from third in what proved to be the winning run.
 
"You just have to be one run better than the other team," Schaefer explained. "We didn't have a lot of opportunities today but we at least took advantage of the one opportunity we had early in that game."
 
Nearly matching Sheppard was Cal State LA's starter Ralph Ramirez. The senior pitcher went 7.2 innings allowing four hits and just the one earned run. He walked three and struck out nine. He also had great defense behind him as the Golden Eagles took numerous hits away from the Sea Lions.
 
"Cal State LA played exception defense all game," Schaefer said. "We hit some balls hard that they made incredible plays on. We are trying to find a way to break through and hopefully not have to play one run games all the time."
 
The teams will continue their series tomorrow at Cal State LA starting at 1:00 p.m. PLNU will throw Trevor Abshire in the opener and Kevin Lillicrop in the series finale.
 
"Hopefully we can ride a little bit of this momentum," added Schaefer. "It was key for us to win our home games so that we can have momentum rolling into their ballpark. It is a place we haven't played at since 2008 so hopefully we can go over and get comfortable during batting practice. Sometimes getting away from home can open up the offense a little bit more. The guys get in a bigger ball park, the balls start falling and the guys get something going."