By Zach DeMarcus
April 6, 2018
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) Westmont Baseball (24-13, 17-11 GSAC) was unable to extinguish the tough William Jessup (31-11, 23-5 GSAC) offense this afternoon. Westmont dropped game one of this weekend's three game Golden State Athletic Conference series by a score of 3-6.
 
Westmont head coach Robert Ruiz said, "I thought we came out ready to play. We faced a little bit of adversity and we kind of had a lull in the middle of that game. It felt like we made the game a little bigger than we needed to instead of playing our brand of baseball."
 
Grant Gardner (6-2) took the mound for Westmont. Even without his best stuff, Gardner got through six and two thirds innings. He gave up 11 hits that resulted in six runs – four earned. "Grant's been great for us all year. He didn't have his best day today, but he battled and competed for us. He just didn't have his "A" stuff. He still pushed himself hard through it and got out of some jams," said Ruiz
 
William Jessup's offense struck first in the top of the first. With one out, Will Law hit a single down the right field line that went just past the outstretched glove of Travis Vander Molen. Austen Swift then followed with a line drive single into right center field – advancing Law to third. Cal Koga continued the trend with an RBI-single to center field to score Law. Gardner enticed Joe Starick to hit a soft groundball to Michael Stefanic at second base. Stefanic tagged the runner and threw to first to complete the double play and end the inning.
 
Taylor Garcia led off the bottom of the first with a single to center field. Tyler Roper pushed Garcia over to second with a sacrifice bunt to the third baseman. Stefanic stepped up and hammered a pitch to straight away center field. The ball bounced on the warning track before hopping over the 375 logo for an RBI-ground-rule double – allowing Garcia to score and keeping Westmont at par with Jessup through one.
 
Westmont threatened in the bottom of the third as Garcia was hit by a pitch to start the inning. Roper then scorched a ball over the center fielder's head. Garcia got caught in a pickle as he rounded third base. He eventually was tagged out and Roper took third in the process. Westmont was unable to plate the run as they would groundout twice to the third baseman to end the inning.
 
Both teams swapped zeros for two innings before William Jessup added two in the top of the fourth. Koga led off the inning with a double, just barely fair, hit down the left field line – Andrew Shaps came in as the courtesy runner. Joe Starick hit a groundball to the second baseman – advancing Shaps to third. Noah Shackles was then hit by a pitch. Josh Duitsman followed with a double to left field – scoring Shaps and pushing Shackles to third. Joey Torres plated Shackles with a sacrifice fly to right field – giving William Jessup a 3-1 lead.
 
William Jessup added another run in the top of the sixth inning. Koga led off the inning with a single up the middle – Shaps again came on as the courtesy runner. Starick singled through the left side. Both runners advanced 90 feet on a pass ball. Shackles hit a ground ball to the third baseman Luke Coffey. Coffey fired home to throw Shaps out at the plate.
 
Duitsman followed with a single to right field. The right fielder, Muller, fired home as Starick was attempting to score. Starick beat the throw but was called out for an illegal slide. William Jessup would eventually get their run as Torres later singled through the left side to score Shackles and extend their lead to 4-1.
 
Jessup added two more runs in the top of the seventh. Kawaiola Takemura led off with a single to left field. Law hit a two hoper to first base that hit off the heal of the first baseman's glove and bounced to right field – Allowing Law to reach on the error and Takemura to advance to third. Swift then walked to load the bases. Gardner coaxed Koga to hit a groundball to the shortstop for a double play – Takemura was able to score on the play.
 
Starick followed with a walk – putting runners on first and third with two outs. That was the end of Gardner's afternoon as left-hander Bay Buckley came in on relief. Shackles hit an RBI-ground-rule double that bounced over the left field fence to score Law. Buckley then enticed Duitsman to fly out to center field to end the inning.
 
Buckley ended up going an inning and a third while giving up two hits and striking out two. Dylan Sund came in to throw the ninth for Westmont. He struck out one and walked one while surrendering zero hits. Ruiz said, "I thought Bay and Dylan did a really good job for us out of the bullpen."
 
Westmont, once again, looked to make a late inning comeback in the bottom of the ninth. Muller reached on an error by the third baseman to lead off the inning. After a fly out, Bryce Morison singled through the left side. Taylor Bush hit a sharp line drive in the right center gap for a two RBI-double – brining the score to 6-3 in favor of William Jessup. That is as close as Westmont would come as the Jessup pitcher would get a strikeout and a groundout to end the game.
 
Ruiz added, "The combination of the offensive lull to go with an error defensively and a base running mistake – those things just kind of add up. You have to hand it to Jessup they beat us in all three phases of the game today. They're a good team and so are we. It's all about responding. I have a lot of confidence that we'll come back tomorrow ready to go."
 
The two clubs will play a doubleheader to conclude the three-game series tomorrow. First pitch is scheduled for 11:00 a.m.