By Christian Bond, PLU Sports Information Student Writer

SPOKANE – Cole Johnson pitched into the seventh inning and hit a home run for Pacific Lutheran, but 14th-ranked Whitworth came away with the 7-3 Northwest Conference baseball victory in the rubber game of the series Sunday afternoon at Merkel Field.

Johnson tossed 6.2 innings but allowed six earned runs, while at the plate he hit his second home run of the year and finished the day as one of three Lutes with two hits. Whitworth starter Ryan Kingma held the Lutes scoreless until the seventh inning. Drew Oord led the seventh off with a single through the right side of the infield, and two outs later Johnson stepped to the plate and hit a two-run home run to make it a 3-2 game at the time.

Whitworth scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh to turn the one-run lead into a 7-2 advantage. The trouble began with two outs and a runner on, when a third-strike wild pitch allowed Matthew Nelson to reach base and extend the inning, with the Pirates going on to score four times. The Lutes added another run in the top of eighth, when Tyler Thompson grounded into a fielder's choice, allowing Ben Welch to score from third base. As a team the Lutes had eight hits, but could only turn those hits into three runs as they left five runners on base.

"We had eight hits, but other than Cole's home run we didn't hit with runners in scoring position," PLU head coach Nolan Soete said. "We didn't execute team fundamentals today. We didn't bunt well; we didn't move runners, and we didn't drive runs in when we had the opportunity."

The Lutes finish the series with an even 10-10 overall record and a 6-6 Northwest Conference mark through four weeks of conference play. Meanwhile Whitworth improves to 14-4 overall and 6-3 in conference play. PLU will visit cross-town rival Puget Sound for a nonconference matchup Wednesday at 3 p.m. before returning home to host Whitman next weekend in a three-game series.