The Corban University baseball team traveled across town to meet up with NCAA Division III Willamette University for a midweek matinee between capital-city rivals on Tuesday afternoon, dropping the contest by a 9-4 final score.
"We are still looking for ways to play more consistently," said Head Coach Derek Legg. "We will continue to work in practice over our bye week and look forward to our next opportunity to compete."
After the first half of the contest was a scoreless showdown between the two squads' pitching staffs, the Bearcats struck first with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fifth. It was a bullpen day for the Navy and Gold, as Braedyn Chong, Giovanni Cervantes, and Mason Shaw all turned in scoreless outings in the first four innings.
After the home team drew first blood, the Warriors answered back with two of their own in the top of the sixth, with Morgan Hostetler driving in the Navy and Gold's first run of the game with a sacrifice fly, and Brad Pellkofer scoring later in the stanza on an attempted double steal.
That evened the score, but the lead would quickly return to Willamette's hands when Ryan Whithorn hit a solo blast to left in the bottom of the sixth.
Showing resiliency, Aidan Bunn sliced a game-tying, two-out single to right field to knot the score at three in the top of the seventh, but a shutdown inning continued to elude the Warrior bullpen, as the Bearcats re-took the lead with a pair of runs in their half of the frame.
Willamette broke it open in the eighth, when Jeff Hoffman cleared the bases with a three-run double into the right-field corner. Sam Daly then brought Hoffman home with an RBI two-bagger of his own.
The Warriors would plate a run in the ninth inning on a single by Ryan Clay, but the deficit was too much to overcome.
Corban (12-14-1) will look to end its five-game skid when it returns to Willamette University on March 30th for another non-conference matinee against the Bearcats. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m.
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