CC Flaherty
Staff Writer
With a third straight regular season title under their belts, the Leopards entered the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament ranked No. 11 nationally. The team won three of their four games to earn a bid to the NCAA Regionals this weekend.
The Leopards started off strong in the tournament with a win over the Redlands Bulldogs, 4-3, on May 8 at Ben Hines Field, in front of over 150 fans from each team.
On the mound, senior pitcher Matthew DesMarets was a key factor in the early lead to this game as well. He improved to 9-2 on the season, only allowing four hits and just one earned run over 6.2 innings while striking out four.
“My last start against them wasn’t too good so I was pretty much just trying to be controlled, not move too fast, and just be with myself,” DesMarets said.
Sophomore pitcher Justin Ries also came in for 2.1 innings of relief and took care of business earning his fourth save. The Leopards were able to smoothly hand off that lead to the new pitcher stepping in.
“I knew my name was going to be called early, so I had to prepare myself to stay mentally tough.” Ries said. “Just trying to win it and keep going trying to get to the next game… and become tournament champions.” Ries said.
The Leopards’ goal was to jump on Redlands early in the game to get them fired up and rolling fast. They did just that scoring three runs in the first inning.
“Our mindset was to come in and be aggressive and we did that and we got the lead,” head coach Scott Winterburn said. “Our pitchers hung in there and we were able to hand the lead off to Justin Ries and Ries did a great job for us. As you saw, he closed out the game for us. We felt like our pitching would give us a chance to win late if we could give him a lead, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Senior first baseman Noah Garcia credits good communication for the team’s success.
“Just having consistency with our offense the whole time and each picking each other up and being for the guy after or before him.” Garcia said. “We just need to be talking to each other about what we are trying to do and what’s going on in the game and not being silent and just sitting there. So we can share what we learned.”
Redlands made a late push and hit a home run in the eighth inning but came up short, 4-3.
The Leopards followed on Friday with a dramatic walk off win against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, 11-10, in 11 innings. Saturday saw the team losing a heartbreaker to the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, 13-12, and then a rematch with the Sagehens on Sunday that La Verne won, 9-7.
La Verne will host the NCAA Regionals this weekend at Ben Hines Field, with Whitworth, McMurry and Pomona-Pitzer also in the field. The Leopards open up Regional play with Whitworth at 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
CC Flaherty can be reached at catherine.flaherty@laverne.edu.
CC Flaherty is a staff photographer for the Campus Times and La Verne Magazine, and a junior communications major with a concentration in public relations. She is also a broadcast announcer for La Verne Athletics and has previously been a staff writer for the Campus Times.
Christen Ziska is a staff photographer for the Campus Times and La Verne Magazine. She is a junior communications major with a concentration in public relations. She plans to become a social media coordinator for an NBA team.
