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Baseball swept in three game series by Chapman

As Ryan Cavan from Chapman is caught stealing third base during the fourth inning, Leopards third baseman Trevor Boucher tags him out. The Leopards lost the doubleheader with the Panthers on April 5, 8-2 and 8-4. Baseball will play Caltech at home Friday. / photo by Leah Heagy
As Ryan Cavan from Chapman is caught stealing third base during the fourth inning, Leopards third baseman Trevor Boucher tags him out. The Leopards lost the doubleheader with the Panthers on April 5, 8-2 and 8-4. Baseball will play Caltech at home Friday. / photo by Leah Heagy

Vanessa Avilez
Staff Writer

The La Verne baseball team was defeated in a three game series to Chapman on April 5-6.

La Verne (15-14) played Chapman (25-4) at home in a doubleheader Thursday afternoon ending in 8-2 and 8-4 and at Chapman on Friday resulting in 4-3.

In game one, La Verne took the lead when outfielder Tom Nall hit an RBI single to left field that drove in infielder Trevor Boucher to score the first run of the inning.

“I cheated for an off-speed pitch and he threw it in my zone and I got a hit,” said Nall, a senior movement in sports science major.

Chapman came back and started heating up when they scored six runs in the fourth inning with outfielder Steve Fraser bringing in two RBIs.

Once again Nall drove in outfielder Brad Licher in the fifth inning, scoring two runs for the Leopards.

Chapman pulled ahead again scoring two more and making game one the first win for the Panthers.

In game two, Chapman took the lead early, but in the third inning ULV’s Brad Licher hit a three-run home run as the Leopards took a 4-2 lead on Licher’s fifth home run of the season.

“I tried to hit the ball hard and just got a good piece of it,” said Licher, a senior business major.

Chapman came back in the fourth inning when catcher Matt Pearson hit a two run home run tying the score at 4-4.

In the fifth inning the Panthers came back with four more runs ending in another 8-4 victory.

In the last game, the Leopards had the lead, 3-1, entering the ninth inning.

However, in the final inning, the bases were loaded when Panther Stuart Hyman tied the game by driving in two runs and sending the game into an extra five innings.

In the 14th inning, Chapman‘s Kurt Yacko scored the winning run after catcher Ryan Villasenor’s single off Leopards’ pitcher David Contreras.

It was an outstanding game especially because of the performance of Leopards’ starting pitcher Jolly, who allowed just one run in the first seven innings of the game.

Despite being swept by Chapman, the Leopards showed intensity and a great amount of effort in these three game series.

Although they were defeated in conference, La Verne is still currently in first place in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

When asked about the upcoming game with Azusa Pacific, Licher replied with confidence, “There’s always a team to beat. We should win; no problem.”

“We have a good chance to go up against them,” Nall said.

La Verne will play the first of their final three conference match ups starting today against Caltech at home with the first pitch at 3 p.m.

The Leopards will finish the series the following day at Caltech before preparing for Cal Lutheran on April 20.

“Our focus is winning the conference and doing what we need to do,” said head coach Scott Winterburn.

Vanessa Avilez can be reached at vavilez@ulv.edu.

Vanessa Avilez
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