REDLANDS, Calif. – After honoring their 13 seniors/graduate students, the University of Redlands Baseball team (26-14, 15-9 SCIAC) secured their first series victory over No. 4 University of La Verne since 2016 taking game one 7-6 before dropping game two, 10-3. They also qualified for the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Tournament for the first time since 2021.
Game 1 (W, 7-6)
The Leopards jumped in front with a three-run first as Bulldog starter Erik Radder (San Diego, CA) was forced out of the game early due to an injury. His replacement Tanner Currier (Brawley, CA), though, shut things down as he stranded a runner at second.
In the next half inning the Bulldog offense responded by taking the lead after three RBI hits. Luke De Vries (Irvine, CA) started things off with a base hit to right field and then advanced to second on a wild pitch. A walk to Tyler Preece (Bellevue, WA) then put two runners on. Following a strikeout that put two outs on the scoreboard Redlands rallied for four runs with Will Cell (Seattle, WA) driving in one with a single to left followed by a Gabe Ceja single to right and a Nate Miller (San Jose, CA) double off the left field fence, pushing UR in front 4-3.
La Verne tied the game on a balk in the second before both pitching staffs shut the offenses out through the sixth inning. In the seventh, the Leopards looked to have control of the game after scoring twice and their pitching staff throwing six-straight shutout innings.
Redlands, however, came back in the bottom of the seventh with three runs, again all coming with two outs. Rylan Morris (Fullerton, CA) was the one who started the rally with an RBI-triple into right center that allowed Mason Chetcuti (Redwood City, CA), who singled earlier, to score.
Preece kept the momentum going with a single back up the middle that tied the game at six. Following a Kirkland double that moved Preece to third, Cell had his second two-out RBI as he chopped a ball to the shortstop that was hit too softly to make a play on as Preece scored what would be the eventual game-winning run.
Brett Edwards (Santa Monica, CA) came on for the six-out save to begin the eighth. He stranded a Leopard at second after a single and sacrifice bunt to begin the eighth inning. In the ninth, the tying run was at second after a two-out walk and a wild pitch, but Edwards would get the following hitter to roll over on a pitch to third where Preece made the play to end the game.
De Vries finished 3-for-5 with a run scored, Cell was 2-for-4 scoring a run, driving in two and walking twice, Preece was 1-for-3 scoring twice and driving in another and Morris finished 1-for-5 scoring a run and driving in another. Aziz Bishop came on in relief throwing 0.2 innings and picked up his second win on the season and Edwards collected his seventh save on the season after throwing the final two innings not surrendering a run and giving up just one hit and a walk.
Game 2 (L, 10-3)
The Bulldogs fell behind 8-0 after five innings before scoring their first run of the game on a Preece double in the fifth that allowed CJ Brown (San Diego, CA) to come around and score.
The final two runs came on a pair of bases loaded walks drawn by Brown and Jake Burgess (Riverside, CA) as the U of R made it 10-3.
De Vries and Preece both had two-hit games. On the mound Jack Brown (San Diego, CA) ate up 4.2 innings after the first two Bulldogs only recorded nine outs. Kaiya Saito (Bellevue, WA) pitched a perfect ninth with two strikeouts.
Redlands' 26 wins overall and 15 in conference play are the most since 2018 when they made their last NCAA Tournament appearance when they won 33 games, 19 of which came in SCIAC.
The Bulldogs will now prepare to face California Lutheran University next Wednesday, May 7 in Thousand Oaks for the first ever first round game of the SCIAC Tournament. Unlike the rest of the tournament that is double elimination, this is a win or go home situation with the winner advancing to the double elimination portion of the tournament against No. 1 seed La Verne on Thursday and the loser waiting on a potential at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.
