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La Verne, CA— Oxy baseball played La Verne in Game 3 of their SCIAC series on Saturday afternoon in La Verne.
Oxy would strike in the 1st inning to score the first run of the game when Alex Henderson continued to swing the bat well and drove in Tyler Kubo with an RBI with a single to right center. Christian Martinez was on the mound for Oxy and he kept the Leopards of the board in the 1st inning with the help of Logan Rooney catching a runner trying to take 3rd base to end the inning.
Martinez pitched a 1-2-3 end inning and then worked around trouble in the 3rd, stranding runners on 2nd and 3rd by inducing an inning ending fly out to center. Garrett Palme would get things started for Oxy in the 4th by singling through the right side. Jackson Short advanced Palme to 3rd base after Logan Rooney moved him to 2nd with a sac bunt.
Palme would come in to score on an RBI fielder's choice from Sancho Llamas to extend the Tiger lead to 2-0. La Verne responded with one run in the bottom half of the inning. The game would remain 2-1 until the 6th, when the Leos scored 2 runs. One run was walked in with the bases loaded, and Wilson Schwegler was tasked with getting the next two outs with the bases loaded.
Schwegler got a fly out that scored the run that made it 3-2 Leos as the runner tagged from 3rd to score. After a walk, Schwegler minimized the damage and got the 3rd out of the inning with another fly out.
The Leos tacked on an insurance run in the 7th, but the Tigers immediately responded in a big way in the 8th. With the help of some errors by La Verne, Oxy capitalized and tied the game when Tyler Kubo drove in Lou Martineau with a single through the right side.
Jeffery Cmbra would step up to bat with two outs and promptly come up clutch by blasting a go-ahead 2-run home run over the left field wall to give Oxy a 6-4 lead. Elias Oster shut down the Leopards in the 8th inning to maintain the Oxy lead heading into the 9th.
In the bottom of the 9th, the Leopards drew two walks to start the inning and single brought in a run and both runners advanced on the throw to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs. The next batter would single to bring in both runs and give La Verne the 7-6 win.
The Tigers are now 3-3 in SCIAC play and will face off with the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens on Friday, March 22nd at 3pm on the road before a home doubleheader on Saturday, March 23rd.
