Hal Hargrave

2/20/15 Baseball

Sports

811 Words

The University of La Verne baseball team brought their talents back to the Ben Hines Field at the

Campus West for their home opener of the season and the beginning of Southern California

Intercollegiate Athletic conference play with a 12-1 win Friday over the Caltech Beavers.

With a win on Friday and two win Saturday, the Leopards completed the sweep of the Beavers

and are 4-3 overall on the season and 3-0 to start conference play.

“We worked really hard this week on correcting and fine-tuning some of the little things and

executing on parts of the game that we did not out in Arizona,” junior pitcher Alex Bernstein

said. “It felt good to come home and put that to action in games and get some W's that were a

direct correlation of our hard work in practice this week.”

In the bottom half of the first inning, junior shortstop Woody Reyes doubled down the left-field

line and scored after the third batter of the inning junior outfielder Matt Caselli reached first base

on an error that brought Reyes home to make it 1-0.

With the wind blowing out to right-center field sophomore first baseman Ben White tripled into

the right-center field gap after the right fielder tried to make a stab at the ball and the ball

skidded by him to the outfield fence as Caselli came around from first to score.

“Ever since I've been young I haven't been great at pulling the ball because my swing was just

such an inside-out swing that I hit the ball well the other way,” White said. “It hasn't been until

college that I been able to develop hitting the ball all around the field in any count and pitch

thrown to me. My mindset has helped being an opposite field hitter of not always wanting to pull

the ball and trying to hit one out of the park, my gap to gap hitting has been because of my

ability to hit the other way.”

White finished the game three for five with an RBI.

With a 3-0 score at the end of the first Bernstein came back out to the mound confident in the

Leopards commanding lead. After giving up a walk to the first batter, freshman first baseman

David Watson of the Beavers in the top of the first inning, Bernstein managed to get the next

three batters out on two strikeouts and fielder's choice.

Senior outfielder Tyler Watkins recorded a single and a stolen base in the bottom of the second

inning, but the Leopards were unable to score.

“The lineup has done a good job as a whole this season putting us in positions to drive in runs,

but more than anything else we have taken advantage of those opportunities and executed,”

Watkins said. “We have to continue to build on that approach going into this next weekend and

later into the season.”

Watkins finished two-for-four, with two runs scored, an RBI and a walk drawn out of the leadoff

spot.

After both teams were unable to score in the third inning, the Leopards came out in the bottom of

the fourth and after Watkins sacrificed senior catcher Zach Quiones over to third and Reyes hit a

sacrifice fly to the outfield to drive Quiones home.

The Leopards were able to pick up three more runs in the sixth and seventh inning from RBI

singles of Caselli and Watkins. This made it a 7-0 lead for La Verne heading into the eighth

inning.

The Beavers were able to pick up their lone run of the game in the top of the eighth inning off of

an RBI triple from sophomore catcher Tim Menninger, which scored freshman infielder Chris

McCarren.

The Leopards answered back in the bottom half of the eighth inning when sophomore outfielder

Ashton Edior doubled down the line to score both senior utility player Mark Jebbia and Thomas.

Sophomore infielder Andrew Douglas then had a sacrifice fly to center field to score junior

centerfielder Nolan Henley from third. Freshman catcher Mark Abbate singled through the right

side to score both Edior and Watkins for a five-run fifth inning, in which the mercy rule was then

applied and ended the game for the Leopards with a 12-1 win.

“The team feels good coming off the weekend but we know that there's always things to improve

on,” Bernstein said. “We made some mistakes this weekend the other teams may capitalize on,

but we got away with it. We need to focus on those aspects of the game this week in practice,

and fine tune those things and just take it one day at a time and not look at it as a whole

weekend, but just one game on Friday to start.”

The Leopard’s next game is at 2:30 p.m. Friday at Arce Field against Claremont- Mudd- Scripps.

Hal Hargrave can be reached at hallett.hargrave@laverne.edu

Sources

1. Ben White, sophomore first baseman, 909-856-0937, Benjamin.white@laverne.edu

2. Alex Bernstein, junior pitcher, 909-896-9146, abernstein21@gmail.com

3. Tyler Watkins, senior outfielder, 206-225-7248, tyler.watkins@laverne.edu

White

It felt good just to be back home this weekend. Arizona sometimes can be a little weird with

guys not being used to being away from La Verne and sleeping in hotels over the weekend. But,

it did feel good to come back and get back into routine at home at home this week against the

Caltech team that seems to be improving every year. They are a team that throws strikes and puts

the ball in play. So anybody with a bat or a glove for them can be dangerous.

Ever since I've been young I haven't been great at pulling the ball because my swing was just

such an inside-out swing that I hit the ball well the other way. It hasn't been until college that I

been able to develop hitting the ball all around the field in any count and pitch thrown to me. My

mindset has helped being an opposite field hitter of not always wanting to pull the ball and trying

to hit one out of the park, my gap to gap hitting has been because of my ability to hit the other

way.

After this weekend we have been able to take away some good confidence. In Arizona we played

some good teams, but it wasn't until the last game that we played the type of baseball that we

knew we could play. We were able to get some of the kinks and nerves out this week and against

Caltech and are now prepared for the rest of the season.

Watkins

The lineup has done a good job as a whole this season putting us in positions to drive in runs, but

more than anything else we have taken advantage of those opportunities and executed. We have

to continue to build on that approach going into this next weekend and later into the season.

We hit a little too many fly balls and elevated the ball against Caltech. When you get back to

hitting balls in the ground and driving the ball and sitting on our pitch and capitalizing by hitting

balls in the gap.

I have always had the mentality of a leadoff hitter. So the transition wasn't that tough to lead off

and see more pitches for my team to get us prepared, and doing whatever I can to get on base in

the process.

This season we are going to have to be a very detail oriented team and a team that has a chip on

their shoulder heading into every game against some stiff competition in conference.

stein

We worked really hard this week on correcting and fine-tuning some of the little things and

executing on parts of the game that we did not out in Arizona. It felt good to come home and put

that to action in games and get some W's that were a direct correlation of our hard work in

practice this week.

We definitely have some guys in our bullpen that have stepped up back and can absolutely pitch.

We have key pieces that have come in this off-season that can both be back end of the bullpen

guys or even workhorses for us. Like all the other guys on the team, I have worked really hard

my off-season to get where I am, but there is always work to be done in ways we can get better

but we have the pieces in place on our pitching staff to make a deep run in conference.

My arm feels good and is holding up quite well since surgery, and a lot of that is a testament to

the off-season program that La Verne had me on in which I was able to excel in. I'm happy to

know that I can finally be healthy enough to be out on the mound to help my team win in any

way that I can.

The team feels good coming off the weekend but we know that there's always things to improve

on. We made some mistakes this weekend the other teams may capitalize on, but we got away

with it this weekend. We need to focus on those aspects of the game this week in practice, and

fine tune those things and just take it one day at a time and not look at it as a whole weekend, but

just one game on Friday to start