By Jacob Norling
April 11, 2025
 
(HILO, Hi.) The fourth-ranked Westmont Baseball team (30-9) not only won their fourth and fifth in a row on Friday night in Hilo, but the day also came with some history thanks to Westmont's ace, Bryan Peck. Peck, Westmont's four-year opening day starter, had already laid claim to the program's win record earlier this season.
 
Next up on the list: the program's record strikeout record, which had been held by John Thomas since the spring of 1966. Thomas ended 307 plate appearances with punch-outs in his time as a Warrior. Peck entered the day on Friday with 303 of his own, needing five to finally surpass Thomas atop of the list. Career strikeout 308 ended up coming with two outs in the home-half of the fifth in Hilo, when Peck buckled the knees of Hilo's Brandon Wada with a two-strike slider that landed right on the outside corner.
 
Peck's first strikeout came to the first-ever batter he faced in college, when he made an impromptu opening day start against Lewis-Clark State in 2022. Since that day, Peck has fanned batters in the biggest games in places such as Santa Barbara, Costa Mesa, Lewiston, and Hilo, amongst others. Now, Peck will be the name that future Warrior pitchers will chase, the same that Westmont's staff had chased Thomas for 59 years until Friday night.
 
The last record that Peck is chasing down is now coming into focus, which is the innings-pitched marker that Thomas has held at 346.1 for nearly 60 years. Peck's five-and-a-third yesterday saw the right-hander finish with 330.2 innings-pitched. Sixteen more innings, and he will stand alone in that category as well.
 
Westmont fans can fortunately view the end of the fifth inning as historic, the inning was not without its frustrations, as a 3-1 lead turned into a tie game with two outs thanks to a base-hit off the bat of Cody Min. Trey Dunn launched a home run to give Westmont a temporary lead in the top of the sixth, but the Vulcans quickly responded with a tally of their own in the bottom half, sending the game to the late-innings knotted at four.
 
After back-to-back strikeouts began Westmont's half of the seventh, Grant Yzermans collected one of the biggest hits of his breakout campaign when he turned around a center-cut fastball to straight-away left for his third home run of the year to put Westmont on top for good. Jack Bollengier would tack on one more an inning later with a two-out double to score Dunn, allowing Paul Svagdis to hand the ball to Zach Yates with six outs to go.
 
Westmont's all-time saves leader collected his 10^th of the season, and the 22^nd of his career by retiring all six batters he faced to secure the 6-4 win. Caden Beloian, who threw an inning and two-thirds in relief, collected his third win of the year.
 
Warriors fans got to enjoy a less-stressful game two of the series in which the Warriors got started early and maintained the lead the rest of the way. With Yzermans aboard to begin game two, Bryce McFeely saw a cement-mixing breaking ball flutter its way to the heart of the zone, before the senior dropped his barrel on it for a two-run bomb to open the scoring. The Warriors would add one more in the second and a few more after that, but as it turned out, Ryan Humphreys would have been just fine with McFeely's long-ball.
 
That is because the senior southpaw turned in one of the finest outings of his season, twirling six-innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts to show for it. Willis Lacy came on in the seventh to record the final three outs, securing a comfortable 7-1 win in game two. For Humphreys, the win moved him to 7-1 on the year.
 
Westmont and Hilo will play two more tonight, before the Warriors fly back to Santa Barbara on Sunday morning.