REDLANDS, Calif. – The University of Redlands Baseball team (0-1, 0-1 SCIAC) opened their 2025 season with a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) game at The Yard Friday afternoon in which they were unable to hold onto a ninth inning lead as they fell 11-9 to Whittier College.
The Poets got on the board first in the second on a solo home run before they plated a pair in the fifth on a single to center.
The Bulldogs, though, came right back in the bottom half of the fifth with eight runs on six hits as Gabriel Ceja (Long Beach, CA) singled to left plating Tyler Preece (Bellevue, WA) who singled to lead off the inning.
Mark Kirkland (Redlands, CA) was hit by a pitch and Sebastian Mejorado (Oceanside, CA) sacrificed the two runners over in front of Ceja.
Whittier then made a pitching change, which resulted in a pop out, but Mason Chetcuti (Redwood City, CA), however, came up and tied the game at three with a two-run single to right center.
Runs four and five came off a double by Anthony Thomas (Moreno Valley, CA) to left center in his Bulldog debut and Jake Burgess (Riverside, CA) drove in Chetcuti on a sacrifice fly.
After Thomas scored on a wild pitch, Kirkland singled home Luke De Vries (Irvine, CA) and Mejorado doubled in Preece for an 8-3 U of R lead after five innings.
After a scoreless sixth thrown by Tanner Currier (Brawley, CA), the Poets scored three times to pull within one, 8-7, after an RBI-single and a three-run home run in the seventh.
Both teams failed to push across any runs in the eighth before the Poets tied and took the lead in the ninth, 11-8. The Bulldogs would respond with a Rylan Morris (Fullerton, CA) run after Preece grounded out, but the Poets would close out the win 11-9 as UR left two runners on base.
In his return to the Maroon and Grey Kirkland tied Ceja with three hits for the game and was one of seven Bulldogs with an RBI. The loss was charged to Gavin Duenez (Redlands, CA) who threw one inning giving up four unearned runs on four hits along with a strikeout.
Redlands completes the three-game series on the road tomorrow with first pitch of game one of the doubleheader at 11 a.m.
