LA GRANDE, Ore. – The Corban University baseball team wrapped up a victory in a halted game one and followed that with a doubleheader sweep to earn three victories against Eastern Oregon University to vault themselves into the Cascade Collegiate Conference Tournament. The Warriors took game one, which was halted due to rain on Saturday, by a final score of 14-11. Then came the doubleheader, which the Warriors took by scores of 5-3 and 10-3.
"I'm incredibly happy for our program to be headed back to the conference tournament," said Corban Head Coach Derek Legg. "We challenged our players at the start of April, knowing that it was going to be a challenging road moving forward, and they responded in a great way every time they needed to."
To start a marathon day, the Navy and Gold gave the ball to Drew Scherrer, with no runners on and one out in the bottom of the ninth of the halted game. After the first man reached, Scherrer promptly delivered a strikeout and a lineout to short to seal the victory. Corban used strong offensive days from Estenio Sede (2-5, 2 HR, 3 RBI), Kyle Clay (2-5, 2B, HR, 4 RBI), and Brad Pellkofer (2-4, HR, 2 RBI) to carry the Warriors to a win in the series opener.
Corban would send ace Zack Simon to the hill in the second game of the series, and the right-hander delivered yet another electric outing. He was able to garner some early run support, as freshman Ryan Clay launched a leadoff homer to center to start the top of the first inning. Eastern Oregon would answer back immediately in the bottom of the first with a leadoff double, which eventually came around to score on a groundout, knotting the game at 1-1 after the first inning of play.
From there, the two starters would settle in. Jadon Yancy, the Mountaineers starter, would not allow another run until the seventh inning, turning in a strong performance to match Simon pitch-for-pitch. Corban would retake the lead in the top of the seventh as Brian Landon led off the inning with a single and eventually scored on a wild pitch. Maxwell Jeffrey would follow that with a double into right-center field, scoring Brad Pellkofer to give the Warriors a 3-1 lead.
Simon would run into a bit of trouble in the bottom of the eighth as the Mountaineers had a runner at first base with two outs, the hosts would garner a walk, followed by a single to cut the deficit to 3-2. That was followed by an infield single on a 3-2 pitch, in which the runner who started at second base would come all the way around to score, tie the game at 3-3, and chase Simon from the contest. Corban sidewinder Jacob Bowser took over and got a lazy fly ball to left field to limit the damage and keep the score tied.
All in all, it was another fantastic outing for Simon as he went 7.2 innings, scattering 8 hits, allowing just 2 earned runs, and tying a school record with 14 strikeouts.
With the score tied at 3-3, the Corban offense again came up clutch. Pinch hitter Chris Grayson walked to lead off the inning and was then pinch ran for by Aidan Bunn. The next two Corban hitters would be retired in order, leaving a runner at first base with two outs. Corban again turned to the bench and pinch hitter Kairos Torres-Umi worked a walk to push Bunn into scoring position. That was followed by a gritty at-bat by Kyle Clay who delivered with a two-out, two-strike base hit to score Bunn and give Corban the lead. On the very next pitch, Estenio Sede would line a single into right, scoring pinch runner Jaren Childs to give Corban a 5-3 advantage.
Bowser would return to the mound to close out the ballgame in the bottom of the ninth and secure the 5-3 victory.
The final game of the day started in a similar fashion as Ryan Clay launched his second leadoff homer of the day to give the Warriors a 1-0 advantage in the first inning.
Corban would turn to yet another stellar arm, Nate Martin, to try to earn their third victory of the day. Martin would certainly deliver, turning in a final line of 7 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, and 3 Ks to keep the Mountaineer offense at bay.
On the other side of the ball, the Corban offense stayed hot plating ten runs in the contest.
Following the Clay homer in the first, the Navy and Gold would get an RBI-single from Brad Pellkofer in the second to push the lead to 2-0. They would score again in the fourth on RBI-groundouts from Pellkofer and Ryan Clay who each picked up their second RBIs in the first four innings of play.
With Martin continuing to dominate on the hill, the Warriors blew the game open in the top of the sixth inning on the back of a Pellkofer 3-run homer, which pushed the Warrior advantage to 7-0 and gave Pellkofer 5-RBIs in the contest.
Corban would get more insurance in the eighth as Aidan Bunn delivered a sac fly, and Kyle Clay tagged an RBI-double into right-center. In the top of the ninth, Warrior second baseman Cale Thompson would launch the first homer of his collegiate career to plate the Warriors tenth and final run.
Eastern would add two runs in the ninth, but Jaren Childs induced a groundball to short to seal the 10-3 victory.
With the three wins on the day, combined with Oregon Tech and Bushnell losses, the Warriors clinched their fifth consecutive trip to the CCC-tournament. Due to the tournament field being set; the Warriors and Mountaineers will not make up yesterdays rained out game.
Offense reigned supreme for the Warriors on the weekend as the squad launched eighth home runs (R. Clay (2), Sede (2), Pellkofer (2), K. Clay (1), Thompson (1)), in the three games and plated 29 runs.
Corban (24-22-1, 11-12) will take the field next as the #4 seed in the CCC Tournament in Lewiston, Idaho. The tournament will run from May 9th-11th, with the winner clinching a spot in the NAIA National Tournament. If Lewis-Clark State College wins the tournament, the tournament runner-up will take the bid, by virtue of LCSC's automatic bid to the tournament as an NAIA Opening Round host.
Corban will take on the #1 Lewis-Clark State College, the second scheduled game of the day, at roughly 4 p.m. on Monday, May 9th at Harris Field in Lewiston, Idaho.
