PASCO, Wash – Whitworth defeated power-hitting Lewis & Clark 15-9 in a Northwest Conference baseball game on Sunday at Columbia Basin College, claiming a series win over the Pioneers despite allowing four home runs on the weekend.
Whitworth improved to 5-9 overall and 2-1 in the NWC, while L&C fell to 11-4, 3-3.
Jacob Doughty and Aaron Clogston both captained the Bucs' offense, the pair totaled for five hits, six RBIs, and four runs scored. Four Pirates finished the game with multiple hits.
The Pioneers started off the game with a four-run top of the first, after Jack Thomson hit his third home run of the series and Dylan Moore RBI doubled.
The Pirates struck back in the bottom half of the first inning with five runs to gain the lead. Dawson Warner started the rally with an RBI triple, Elijah Tanner followed with a sacrifice fly to right field. The Pioneers' lead was gone after Aidan Morrison's two RBI double, and Whitworth took the 5-4 lead with a Riley Cissne squeeze RBI.
The Bucs' struck again in the fourth when Doughty scored on a wild pitch and Dawson Warner recorded his second RBI of the game on a sacrifice fly to right field. Whitworth led 7-4.
The Pirates were able to scratch one more across in the fifth from a well-placed Jacob Doughty sacrifice bunt down the first base line that allowed Clogston to make the score 8-4.
Meanwhile, Whitworth starting pitcher Hunter Dryden settled down after the rough first inning, holding the Pioneers scoreless over the next three innings.
Lewis & Clark scored one run in the top of the sixth inning when Thomson was intentionally walked with the bases loaded cutting the deficit, 8-5. The strategy paid off when reliever Aidan Smith got Brennan Davis to fly out to end the inning.
Doughty singled in the bottom of the seventh scoring Morrison, for his second of four RBIs on the day, giving Whitworth the 9-5 lead.
The Pirates caught fire for six runs in the eighth inning, the match was lit by Clogston's two RBI single. Cameron Ley followed with a sacrifice fly and Zach Tincher added an RBI single. Doughty's two-run single concluded the rally, giving Whitworth a 15-5 lead.
L&C's offense did not go down easy in the ninth when they pushed across four runs before the Bucs recorded the final out.
Dryden (3-1) gave up five runs on six hits through 5.2 innings and recorded the win. Smith worked in relief, allowing four runs on two hits in 2.2 innings. Giovanni Costello finished the game recording the final two outs allowing no runs on two hits.
Brayden Nomura (1-1) started on the mound for L&C and took the loss, giving up five runs in a third of an inning.
Whitworth will travel to McMinnville, Oregon next weekend to start a Northwest Conference series against Linfield University.
