Riverside, Calif. - The Golden Eagles baseball team completed a three-game sweep over Providence Christian, this past weekend, by taking both games of today's doubleheader. On Tuesday, La Sierra defeated Providence 9-7 and followed that victory with 6-5 and 12-2 wins on Friday.
In Game 1, the Golden Eagles pushed three runs across the plate in the ninth inning to escape with the 9-7 victory. Matt Zurita led the team with three RBI's on a 2-for-4 game. Brandon Turner and Michael Gonzalez each added one hit and two RBIs of their own.
In Game 2, the first game of Friday's doubleheader, the Golden Eagles entered the bottom of the seventh inning trailing 5-2. La Sierra would go on to score three runs in the bottom of the inning and added the eventual winning run in the eighth inning to take the 6-5 win.
The bottom of the seventh inning started with the first four batters reaching base, but it was Johnny Salinas' (2-for-4) two-out triple that drove in Andrew Lundstrom to tie the score at 5-5, before Adrian Gardea was thrown out trying to score the potential go-ahead run.
After Providence was retired in order to start the eighth inning, Matt Zurita reached base to start the bottom half of the inning after being hit by a pitch. Davron Maxey entered the game to pinch-run for Zurita and subsequently advanced to third on a double by Matt Jaramillo and later scored on a wild pitch by Dylan Chavez.
Michael Hoyes pitched an inning and 2/3 to pick up the victory, while Ben Miller pitched an inning in relief for the save.
Game 3 proved to be a dominating performance by the Golden Eagles who scored four runs in the second inning and eight runs in the fifth inning to take the 12-2 decision.
La Sierra tallied their 12 runs on 12 hits and capitalized on five Providence errors. Salinas who contributed three hits and three RBI's in four at-bats, finishing the day going 5-for-8 in the doubleheader, led the team. Michael Gonzalez (2-for-3) and Adrian Gardea (2-for-3) contributed two hits each, while Zurita and Gardea drove in two RBI's each.
Jeff Guerrero pitched four complete innings, giving up two runs on four hits to pick up the win for the Golden Eagles.
The baseball team is now 6-6 in conference play (11-19 overall). The team will play a non-conference doubleheader next Friday (April 1) versus St. Katherine's College, at home, starting at 11am.
