ATHERTON, CA - The second seeded UBC Thunderbirds began the 2011 NAIA West Tournament with a 5-0 victory over the Simpson University Redhawks on Wednesday afternoon.
"It was another typical UBC win," said T-Bird head coach
Terry McKaig. "At times, we didn't do much offensively but our pitching was outstanding and gave us a chance for the win. We took advantage of some mistakes from Simpson to put the game away after not doing much early on offence."
Sheldon McDonald led the way on the mound for the T-Birds, going seven innings of shutout ball with six strikeouts and allowing just four hits.
Andrew Ledger followed with a strong relief outing over the final two innings, keeping Simpson off the bases paths.
UBC scored once in the second and held a 1-0 lead until the top of the seventh when they scored three runs in large part to three Simpson errors in the inning. The T-Birds added one more run in the ninth for good measure.
It was the top of the order that did the bulk of the damage for UBC with
Keaton Briscoe,
Austin Fruson, and
Blake Carruthers combining for four hits, four RBI, and two runs scored.
Andrew Firth added UBC's other RBI on the afternoon.
With the victory, UBC stays on the winner's side of the five-team, double-elimination tournament. In their second game of the tournament, the 'Birds meet the winner of Menlo College, the no. 1 seed and hosts, and College of Idaho on Thursday at 12:00 p.m.
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