VANCOUVER - Stellar pitching performances by
Eric Brown and
Sheldon McDonald led the UBC Thunderbirds to a 4-1 win over the Lewis-Clark State Warriors on Friday night at Thunderbird Park.
Brown was almost perfect through the first four innings of the game, striking out three while allowing no runs and just one hit. McDonanld took over from there and had five strikeouts over the final five innings, with his only blemish being a pinch-hit home run by Bryson Tajiri in the ninth.
"They were both dominant.Probably as dominant as I have ever seen them," UBC head coach
Terry McKaig said of his pitchers. "Against a team like that you almost have to split up games because they are so good at making adjustments. Even though Eric was throwing good you never know what's going to happen if you leave him out there against these guys in the 6th or 7th inning, so throwing two different looks at them makes it a little harder."
Keaton Briscoe got UBC on the board in the second inning with an RBI single that ricocheted off Warriors pitcher Tyrell Poggemeyer. But the real damage was done by
Mike Elias, whose two-run double to left-centre field in the fifth proved to be the difference in the game.
"We wanted to make a conscious effort to be aggressive at the plate," said McKaig. "We aren't going to face any poor pitching against these guys and you cant sit back and let them get up with strike one so we encouraged guys to swing early in counts if they got good pitches."
The T-Birds added a fourth run off a Warriors' error in the sixth inning.
Heading into the series, the Warriors were the top-ranked team in the NAIA, while the T-Birds were hot on their heels in the fourth spot. The T-Birds are now 31-6 on the year, and half of their losses have come at the hands of the Warriors, who swept a three-game series at home against UBC earlier this season.
"We expect to sweep these guys and we want to pay them back for what they did to us a couple weeks back," said McKaig. "We told the players it's almost a new season starting today because there are no easy games left."
The Warriors fall to 31-3 on the year.
Game two of this three-game series starts at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Thunderbird Park. The final game goes on Sunday at 2 p.m.
