SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Going further than any team in program history ever has, the Corban University baseball team saw its 2021 campaign end on Tuesday in an 11-4 loss to (RV) Westmont College in the NAIA Opening Round.

The Navy and Gold finish the season with a 22-31 overall record, having gone 16-16 in Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) competition and finishing as the CCC Tournament runner-up. Tuesday's defeat marked the end of the program's first-ever trip to the NAIA National Tournament.  

Though the game took place on Russ Carr Field on Westmont's campus, Corban served as the home team for today's matchup.

After both Zack Simon and Westmont's Chad Stoner breezed through the first three innings, Westmont struck first with three runs in the top of the fourth. Thomas Rudinsky got the scoring started with a solo blast, and a Brady Renck RBI single and Robbie Haw sac fly helped Westmont garner a three-run advantage.

Corban quickly erased that deficit, however, responding with a trio of runs of its own in the bottom of the fifth. Dakota Fingar scored the squad's first run of the opening round, coming home on Travis Moore's stolen base of second. Fingar started at third base on the play, crossing home on an errant throw from Westmont's catcher Simon Reid, who was trying to catch Travis Moore stealing second.

Reese Fawley promptly brought home Moore with an RBI single up the middle, and then Nate Cantonwine tied it up with a clutch double off the top of the right-field fence.

Westmont grabbed the momentum right back, however, answering with a four spot in each of the the next two stanzas. A Brady Renck squeeze play put Westmont in front in the sixth, and served as a pivotal moment in the contest. Leadoff man John Jensen then landed a huge blow later in the frame, blasting a two-out, two-run homer to stretch the lead to four.

The long ball proved costly to the Navy and Gold in Westmont's four-run seventh, as well, as Renck's two-out, three-run blast to right-center opened the floodgates in the ballgame.

Renck had a stellar day out of the eight spot of the order, going 3-for-4, scoring two runs, and driving in five.

A solo shot from Morgan Hostetler, his third of the season, got Corban one of those runs back in the seventh, but it wouldn't be enough in the end, as the Navy and Gold saw its season come to an end in Southern California.

Aidan Bunn, Cantonwine, Estenio Sede, Fawley, and Hostetler all collected knocks for the Navy and Gold in the defeat.

In many ways, tt was a monumental season for the Navy and Gold, as the program registered its first 20-win season since 2018, and reached the NAIA Tournament for the first time in its history. In addition, the Warriors set a new single-season home run record with 39 long balls this spring.

Looking ahead, the future is bright for the program. The Warriors are slated to return their top five batting averages—Kyle Clay, Chris Grayson, Hostetler, Sede, and Fawley—from the 2021 season (min. 50 ABs), as well as their ace Simon, the 2021 CCC Pitcher of the Year.