VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds (15-14, 1-3) have drawn first blood in the first of a four-game, three-day home series with the Lewis-Clark State Warriors (18-5, 3-2) at Tourmaline West Stadium.
Sean Heppner was dominant through seven scoreless innings on the mound and the UBC bats came alive early in a 4-0 home shutout victory Friday night.
Brandon Hupe supplied three of the four RBI for UBC, two of which came in the bottom of the third inning from a two-run homerun. Collectively, the 'Birds held the high-powered #3 nationally ranked Warriors to just five hits. UBC managed five hits as well, but made the most of them, especially in the early innings.
"When you get a start like that against a good team like that, it just keeps your defense on their toes and ready," said UBC skipper
Chris Pritchett when speaking about the performance of his starting pitcher
Sean Heppner. "He set the tone for the game and was in complete control from the beginning. It was his best outing of the year, and it came against the best offense that we've seen so far this year."
After a scoreless top half of the first that included three
Sean Heppner strikeouts,
Chris Pritchett's ball club wasted little time in setting the tone.
Noah Or led off the game with a double. His pinch runner
Luciano Letteri scored moments later on
Aaron Marsh's double. Two batters, two doubles and a 1-0 UBC lead. Two batters later Marsh scored on a sacrifice fly from
Brandon Hupe and the 'Birds held the early 2-0 advantage.
Pritchett adds, "We had a really rough weekend last week and we had a strong sense of urgency this whole week. It was a well-played game on both sides but we were excited to start well. We know that we've got a long weekend ahead of us and we're eager to get back to it tomorrow."
Sean Heppner's strong start continued for the 'Birds as he had six strikeouts posted through the first three innings. Heppner's cause was further helped in the bottom of the third inning when
Brandon Hupe hit a high, soaring flyball to left field that held up just long enough to cross over the left field fence for a two-run homerun – His third of the campaign.
Through the middle three innings, neither team was able to scratch out a run.
Sean Heppner surrendered just two hits, and fanned an additional two hitters as the high-powered Warriors continued to come up empty. Greg Blackmon entered the game at pitcher for Lewis-Clark State in the fifth inning and retired the first five hitters he faced – fanning three of them. UBC held a 4-0 advantage heading into the seventh.
Heppner churned out another three-up, three-down inning in the seventh. Through seven he had 10 strikeouts on 94 pitches with only three hits and zero walks. He would give way to
Daniel Sereda who finished the game with three strikeouts of his own while allowing just two hits and zero walks.
The UBC bats were unable to muster any more offense in their final two innings of work, but it wouldn't matter. Their 4-0 lead held up giving them a fast, tidy, error-free victory over the Warriors in the series opener.
"This is what we're capable of doing," concluded Pritchett. "Now it's just a confidence thing for us, and how do we do this consistently? We have a good team. We just haven't showed it enough so far, but we're looking to take that next step this weekend if we can."
These two foes are scheduled to meet twice tomorrow at UBC for a double-header. Game 1 is slated for 1:00 pm, followed by Game 2 at 4:00 pm.
