Simson Garcia | Sports Editor
Twelve straight runs by Western’s baseball team provided the starting point for the four game sweep against St. Martin’s from April 21-22. The runs created enough separation from St. Martin’s, as the visiting team went down, 12-4 in game one.
The first game set the tone for the rest of the series as scores by first-year left fielder Griffey Halle and senior infielder Jay Leverett would come again in later games. Sophomore first baseman Connor McCord hit a three-shot homer to close game one.
Western’s fielding suffocated the Saints so they could not make much of a difference in base running through seven innings. Seven strikeouts were earned by sophomore pitcher Alex Roth for his fourth win. Roth has not lost a game in his pitching campaign.
The Wolves almost faltered in the first inning of game two in part to a two-shot from Saints’s first baseman Adam Eskil that ran in right fielder Austin Feist. Ground was eventually made up by senior center fielder Cody Dykstra’s two run-in’s. McCord and Halle returned to home plate to retake command at 5-2. The duo of Eskil and Feist returned to tie the scoreboard at 5-5 but it was Wolves senior pinch hitter Spencer Bennion’s game saving walk-off single passed the left infield that prevailed.
Western turned the table completely in game three with 22 runs by the Wolves — the most since they recorded 23 against San Francisco State in 2004. A nine-run fourth inning was part of 17 runs, up until that point. Twenty-six hits tied a team-record and the team hit and scored in every way possible and from every player available. A double, triple, homer, a hit-by-pitch — even a balk by a St. Martin’s pitcher — provided the win. In all, 13 different players on the roster scored.
Almost letting game four go and down 6-1 in the third, the home team kept their composure and stopped the Saints from adding to their score.
In the fifth inning, Halle’s 2-RBI double tied it, and scored himself afterwards off of Dykstra’s double.
Senior outfielder Jacob Martinez’s single in to Dykstra put a cap on the series.
Now, at 19-12 in the GNAC, the team’s run of four straight has come at a turning point in the season. Just ahead of them, and atop the conference, is Montana State-Billings, who recently have won six straight. Four games were forfeited versus Montana earlier in the season because of location difficulties and could mean the difference in seeding for the playoffs.
Western continues a six game home stand starting with Lewis & Clark State college on April 25. They hit the diamond at 2 p.m.
Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu
Photo by: Paul F. Davis
