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Panthers swing big past Leopards

La Verne senior pitcher Brent Backlund throws to senior first baseman Ben White to get Chapman freshman shortstop Jarod Penniman for the second out in the top of the first inning. The Panthers beat the Leopards on senior day, 8-5, Friday at Ben Hines Field. La Verne earned a split against Chapman Saturday at Hart Park./ photo by Kendra Craighead
La Verne senior pitcher Brent Backlund throws to senior first baseman Ben White to get Chapman freshman shortstop Jarod Penniman for the second out in the top of the first inning. The Panthers beat the Leopards on senior day, 8-5, Friday at Ben Hines Field. La Verne earned a split against Chapman Saturday at Hart Park. / photo by Kendra Craighead

Jolene Nacapuy
Sports Editor

The baseball team could not swing in a winning streak as the Chapman Panthers took two games out of three in the series.

The Leopards fell 8-5 in game one of the series Friday at Ben Hines Field.

“We have played surprisingly very poorly in the last month. Today I thought we played a lot better, despite what the score says,” head coach Scott Winterburn said. “Chapman took advantage of the mistakes we made and that’s what good teams do and we’re trying to the same, but they did a better job.”

The team came back in the doubleheader Saturday at Hart Park and won the first game, 11-7, but lost its momentum and lost 10-3 in the second.

Eleven seniors – Nolan Henley, Mariano Padilla, Ben White, Woody Reyes, Daniel McDonnell, Diego Cortes, Javi Iniguez, David Mckeller, Alex Bernstein, Brett Early and Brent Backlund – were honored prior to Friday’s game by coaches, family, friends and teammates.

“It’s a sad day always for me. I always shed a tear because I know the end is going to mean I’m not going to see those guys as much as I see them on a regular basis,” Winterburn said. “There’s always some sadness, but there’s always a lot of pride too because by the time they become seniors, they’ve grown a lot. I’m really proud of them.”

La Verne faced Chapman again in the first game of the Final Four Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Con­ference regular season games.

The team is now 17-19 overall and 10-15 in SCIAC play.

In Wednesday’s game, both teams went back-and-forth until the Panthers brought home three runs in the top of the sixth.

The Leopards answered back with four runs in the bottom of the sixth to take a 4-3 lead. However,

Chapman managed to take over the lead in the top of the eighth inning, 5-4.

La Verne was not able to answer back in the bottom of the ninth, resulting in the loss.

“It was a close game and we were back-and-forth,” junior catcher Jakob Thomas said. “We’re still struggling on being on consistent with all nine guys in the lineup.”

In the first game Friday, Chapman brought home three runs in the top of the first and fourth to take a 3-0 lead.

La Verne cut the deficit to one with two runs in the bottom of the fourth. However, the Panthers extended their lead with a two-run home run to right field by freshman third baseman Konnor Zickefoose, 5-2.

The Leopards’ momentum kicked in and they tied it up in the bottom of the fifth.

Freshman third baseman Chris Peres singled up the middle to bring home junior right fielder Ashton Edior, 5-3.

Peres finished the game 3-for-4 with an RBI.

Thomas then doubled down the right field line to bring home White and Peres to tie the game 5-5.

“I had to change my approach and plan and I was looking for a pitch I could get right away,” Thomas said. “I got a curve ball right over the plate and hit the ball hard and found the gap to score the two runs.”

Chapman broke the tie in the top of the seventh with two more runs to take a 7-5 lead.

“We got ahead and they got right back on us,” Edior said. “We didn’t really have the lead for a good amount of time at all and it was just a struggle.”

Zickefoose hit a home run to right field in the top of the ninth to make the score 8-5.

The Leopards could not rally any runs in the bottom of the ninth in the loss.

It was a new day and La Verne came back in first game of the doubleheader Saturday at Hart Park.

The team took an early 1-0 lead, however, Chapman took the lead in the bottom of the third scoring four runs, 4-1.

Both teams went back-and-forth throughout the game, however, La Verne managed to take the lead in the top of the sixth.

A two-run home run to left field by Thomas in the top of the seventh gave the Leopards a 11-7 cushion lead and with consecutive 1-2-3 innings by Bernstein sealed the win.

Bernstein pitched 3.1 innings, while striking out five and earned a save.

Thomas finished the game 2-for-3 with three RBIs.

In the last game of the series, the Leopards once again got on the board early in the top of the first inning, 1-0.

Both teams were tied 2-2 in the top of the fourth, but the Panthers scored big bringing home seven runs, 9-2.

La Verne scored once more in the top of the fifth and Chapman extended their lead in the bottom of the eighth making the score 10-3. The Leopards could not bring in any more runs and settled for a split in the doubleheader.

“It’s not the preparation, it’s the performance. We prepare really hard and sometimes we don’t put it all out there,” Edior said. “We make mistakes here and there and we know what we’re doing wrong, but we just don’t capitalize on them.”

La Verne will face the Whittier Poets at 11 a.m. Saturday at Memorial Field in the second game of the Final Four SCIAC regular season games.

“When we’re seeing all the guys clicking as a unit, I think we’ll see a lot better results, but we’re not focusing on the results, but rather our performance,” Thomas said. “We have to focus on our mentality and we’re not out of it and we have a chance to win those games.”

Jolene Nacapuy can be reached at jolene.nacapuy@laverne.edu.

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