LEWISTON, Idaho - Pacific Lutheran managed a total of just seven hits in 18 innings on Saturday afternoon and ended up losing a pair of games at the Inland Cellular Baseball Tournament hosted by Lewis-Clark State College.

Facing each team's ace pitcher, the Lutes lost to Linfield, 7-3, and then to Whitworth, 6-0. PLU, now 22-17 overall, concludes its season at 2 p.m. Sunday when it plays Lewis-Clark State in the final game of the tournament.

Linfield 7, PLU 3

Of Pacific Lutheran's five hits, three came in the ninth inning, including a three-run homer by Collin Nilson that accounted for all of the team's runs.

Chris Haddeland improved his record to 11-1, limiting the Lutes to Garrett Brown's third inning single in seven innings of work. The Lutes had just four base runners against Haddeland, who retired the side five times.

PLU finally got to Linfield and relief pitcher Garett Speyer in the ninth on singles by Drew Oord and Curtis Wildung, followed by Nilson's second homer of the season over the fence in left field.

The Wildcats took advantage of PLU largesse and a grand slam home run by Jake Wylie in the third inning to score all of the runs they would need. Wylie's seventh homer of the season was the only hit of the inning as the Lutes committed two errors, which led to all of the runs being unearned.

Trevor Lubking took the loss and saw his record drop to 8-4. In seven innings he allowed six hits and seven runs, three earned, while walking three and striking out five. With that fifth strikeout, he established a new PLU single-season record for strikeouts, eclipsing the former record of 101 set by Jason Andrew in 2002. Jake Otness threw an inning of hitless relief for PLU.

Whitworth 6, PLU 0

Dan Scheibe and two relief pitchers combined to limit Pacific Lutheran to just two hits, while Gerhard Mulheims had three hits and scored twice for the Pirates.

The Lutes managed just five base runners in the entire contest. Markus McClurkin hit a single against Scheibe in the third, and Tanner Bogart collected a double against Jason Renner in the ninth. Scheibe improved his record to 5-3, allowing just the one hit while walking three and striking out seven in 7 2/3 innings.

AJ Konopaski took the loss, but he got no help from a PLU defense that committed seven errors. Konopaski went 4 2/3 innings and allowed three unearned runs on six hits. Otness pitched 3 1/3 innings and Nathan Shoup finished up with a scoreless ninth for the Lutes.

 - PLU -