SPOKANE, Wash. – The Pacific Lutheran University baseball team remains very much in the hunt for the Northwest Conference title after taking both games of a doubleheader against Whitworth University on Sunday. The Lutes dominated the Pirates 19-5 in eight innings in Game 1 and shut out the home team 3-0 in the second contest.
"Today was big for our team," said PLU Head Coach
Nolan Soete. "We bounced back from a disappointing Saturday and played well in all three phases. Trotignon and Cohen did a great job competing on the mound, we played good defense and we had a strong day swinging the bats. Overall, it was a great team effort against a good opponent."
Game 1
The Lutes exploded for a season-high 19 runs to defeat the Pirates in eight innings in the opening game of the twinbill. PLU scored in six of their eight times at-bat, including five crooked numbers.
Alex Boyd led off the game with a home run and the rout was on from there as PLU shelled the Whitworth staff for 20 hits. All nine starters had hits and seven of the nine had multiple safeties.
Cody Bentley remained on fire and was 4-for-4 with a walk, a RBI and three runs scored. Boyd,
Cole Trotignon and
Connor Lemma all went deep for PLU. Boyd and Lemma each had five RBI and
Jordan Haworth was on base five times.
Trotignon (4-1) did not have his best outing on the mound, but with heavy run support, Coach Soete kept the junior transfer in the game to pick up the complete game. Trotignon allowed 10 hits in eight innings and struck out five.
Game 2
Freshman
Jonathan Cohen turned in his best outing as a Lute on Sunday. Cohen tossed six scoreless innings, struck out four and allowed just four hits in his fourth career start.
Tommy Snyder didn't let off the gas as he allowed just one hit in the seventh to pick up his first save of the season.
Offensively, the Lutes did just enough after scoring 19 times in the first eight innings of play. PLU got on the board in the second inning when
Andy Schmitz singled with two on and nobody out to score Trotignon and after a walk to Lemma,
Sean Kauffman walked with the bases loaded to score Bentley.
The Lutes tacked on one more in the fifth as Boyd, Haworth and Trotignon all singled to plate a run. Boyd and Trotignon had two safeties in the game, while Lemma drew a pair of free passes.
The Lutes (20-11, 16-7 NWC) remain in second place in the NWC standings despite splitting the four-game series with Whitworth. PLU is just 1.5 games behind conference leader Pacific University and has four-game series remaining with Whitman College and Linfield College before the end of the regular season.
PLU will host the Blues next weekend as it continues its push for the regular season title. The Lutes and the Blues will begin the series on Saturday at 12:00 p.m.
