Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 By Jacob Norling
March 20, 2021
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) (RV) Westmont (16-13, 9-7 GSAC) could not hold the Lions at bay on consecutive days, suffering from a pair of tough-to-swallow losses on Saturday against #4 Vanguard (25-5, 13-3).
 
After taking two from the Lions on Friday, Westmont had a chance to shake things up atop the Golden State Athletic Conference West standings. But on Saturday Westmont ultimately fell back to four games behind Vanguard, after an 8-5 loss in game one followed by a 12-10 loss in game two.
 
In game one, Westmont starter Gabe Arteaga held the Lions hitless for the first three innings while the Warrior bats got him a pair of runs early.
 
In the fourth inning, Westmont ran into trouble when Vanguard's Omar Ortiz drilled his third home run of the weekend with a man aboard to tie it up and wake up the Lions bench that didn't have as much to cheer about on Friday.
 
The energy from the Lions dugout kept rising an inning later, when they took their first lead of the day on a Landon Riker RBI double. Aki Buckson traded places with Riker a batter later, giving Vanguard a 4-2 lead with a double of his own.
 
Westmont got a run back in the bottom of the fifth to trim the deficit to one, but the defining moment of the game one occurred in the ensuing half inning when the Warriors gave the Lions one too many chances.
 
With one on and two out in a 4-3 game in the sixth, Chase Goddard induced what appeared to be an inning-ending groundout to third baseman Ryan Desaegher. Desaegher shuffled to his right and bent down to scoop up the baseball as he was even with the bag, but when Desaegher came up, the glove was empty as the ball trickled through his legs and into left field.
 
Vanguard capitalized on the very next at bat when Riker hit a ball halfway up the batter's eye in dead center field for a three-run shot, putting the Lions up 8-4. The Lions dugout erupted and could smell the blood in the water as they carried the momentum and cruised to an 8-5 victory.
 
In game two, Simon Reid breathed life back into the Westmont dugout when he hammered a ball over the right field fence for a two-run homerun, his second homer in as many days. Daniel Netz had the same idea in the second inning, homering to straight-away left for the second consecutive day to give Westmont a 3-0 lead.
 
Westmont got another pair in the second on a safety squeeze by Alex Stufft and an RBI single by Thomas Rudinsky to give starter Ryan Humphreys a 5-0 lead before he had gone through the Vanguard lineup once.
 
Humphreys allowed only one hit the first time through the order, but leadoff man Landon Riker ensured the second time through would not be as easy. Following a single, Riker homered to right-center field to get the Lions on the board, as the Westmont lead was cut to 5-2.
 
Humphreys struggled with command following the home run, and ended up walking in a pair of runs before surrendering a two-run double to Chad Sutton, giving Vanguard a 6-5 lead.
 
In the sixth inning, Vanguard's Aki Buckson broke things open with a three-run home run off of Kyle Osterhage. Vanguard added on another to take a 10-5 lead into the bottom of the sixth, where things would get interesting.
 
Simon Reid brought the Warrior dugout back to life once more in the bottom of the sixth, hitting his second home run of the day, this time a three-run shot off the batter's eye. Rudinsky let the dugout noise grow even louder two pitches later, when he hit a moon shot past the left field wall to pull the Warriors within one. Unfortunately for Westmont, the rally would go no further in the sixth and Vanguard would add two more in the seventh to push their lead back up to three.
 
Westmont rallied in the ninth, scoring one and putting two runners on. But Rudinsky lined out to the right fielder to end the ballgame, and the Warriors dropped the series finale 12-10.
 
Westmont will return to the diamond next Thursday when they welcome San Diego Christian for a four game GSAC series. Due to limited facilities for the Hawks, San Diego and Westmont will play a four game series in Santa Barbara for the second time this season. Westmont, while hosting, will play as the visiting team for the weekend.
 
Due to both local and state mandates spectators will not be permitted to attend next week's games in person. However, fans can tune in live on the Westmont athletics website.