The Puget Sound baseball team had an eventful weekend of games this week as they traveled south to Oregon. The Loggers were part of the NWC/CCC Challenge this weekend and played several Oregon teams. On Saturday, Feb. 23 the Loggers faced off against Oregon Tech and Willamette; on Sunday, Feb. 24 they played Concordia University.
During their first game against Oregon Tech, both teams struggled to score the first run. The game remained scoreless until the top of the fifth inning when Oregon Tech scored the first run of the game. The Loggers’ momentum to catch up to Oregon Tech helped them in the bottom of the fifth.
Junior Christian Carter (San Diego, Calif.) came out strong for the Loggers on offense, as his hit brought in three runs for the Loggers, making the game 3-1. These three runs would be the only runs scored for the Loggers during this game. Oregon Tech scored once more during the game but were unable to score another run to tie up the game, giving the Loggers the 3-2 win.
Senior Matt Robinson (Lafayette, Calif.) threw for six innings for the Loggers, giving him a streak of 18 scoreless innings so far this season. Three other pitchers threw the last couple of innings to help keep the win.
The Loggers played their next game later that day against conference rivals Willamette. Both teams came close to scoring, but Willamette was able to slowly pull ahead of the Loggers, taking the win. Sadly, the Loggers failed to make any big plays this game and Willamette kept them from scoring throughout the entire game.
Willamette took the win 6-0 against the Loggers. Senior Nate Aguiar (Los Gatos, Calif.) threw six tough innings for the Loggers and only gave up five runs, although two came from an error.
The final team the Loggers played was Concordia on Sunday. Initially, the Loggers came out strong and took an early lead against Concordia, keeping this lead until the sixth inning. However, Concordia kept pushing back against the Loggers to even the score.
During the sixth inning, Concordia caught up to the Loggers by scoring seven runs to take the lead. At this moment in the game the Loggers were incapable of taking the lead again, and Concordia continued to score more runs each inning until the game concluded 11-6.
Junior Jarrod Beiser (Cupertino, Calif.) threw for the Logger defense, and junior Jeff Walton (Carmichael, Calif.) finished this game with three hits, leading the Loggers offensively.
“We’ve shown a lot of what we can do and we’ve experienced some of the ups and downs that you would expect with a young team. I think the preseason only made me more excited to see what we can do as we move into conference [play]. We need to improve our focus. Baseball is a game of ups and downs and you have to stay level in your focus and attention and want to win every pitch,” Robinson said.
Next week the Loggers will play their first home and conference game, against Whitman. The first game in the series will be on Saturday at 11 a.m.
