VANCOUVER – Another walk-off home run sunk the UBC Thunderbirds against Westmont College on Saturday, with the 'Birds going down 5-4 in 12 innings in Santa Barbara, California.
UBC took a 4-3 lead in the 12
th inning, with
Greg Densem picking up the RBI while reaching base via error. But the 'Birds couldn't hold off Westmont in the bottom half of the inning. David Pennington led off the inning with a single off reliever Miles Verwheel, and Thomas Hocutt ended things with a two-run walk-off shot three batters later.
The T-Birds also lost 7-5 to Westmont on a walk-off grand slam on Thursday. Yesterday they rebounded for an 8-0 win, and were off to another great start Saturday, getting six innings of shutout pitching from
Jeremy Newton to kick things off.
UBC went ahead in the first on an
Andrew Firth RBI single, and added two more in the fifth inning on a
Jeremy Kral double and a
Jerod Bartnik single. Bartnik was caught stealing home later in the inning, which came back to haunt the 'Birds in the end.
Westmont got on the board in the seventh inning when Chris Stroh hit an RBI single off reliever
Conor Lillis-White. A walk in the eighth inning turned into a second run charged against Lillis-White before Verwheel came in to replace him, but he couldn't shut the door before Westmont tied the game at three.
UBC had two hits in both the ninth and tenth innings but couldn't convert those chances into runs. Hunter Christenson and Michael Rishwain combined for six innings of one-run relief piching for Westmont.
Brian Murphy picked up the win, allowing eight hits and three runs in six innings. Verwheel takes the loss for UBC, allowing three runs over 4.1 innings of work.
Firth led the 'Birds offensively with four hits. Kral also reached base four times, getting two walks and two hits in the loss.
The T-Birds fall to 6-6 with the loss. They now turn their attention to conference play, which begins next weekend in California against Menlo College. UBC's first home action of the year will be the following week, when they host non-conference sets against Thompson Rivers University and Douglas College.
-30-
