Walk This Gallaway

Wednesday, March 4

Riverside

6 PM

California Baptist University

Montana State Billings

Photo by: Lauren Garcia

3/4/2015 9:20:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

By: Andrew Shortall, Asst. Sports Information Director

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Three outs away from dropping its series opener with Montana State Billings, California Baptist University used an all-hands-on-deck approach to pull its second walk-off victory in five days.

Clutch pinch hits from Taylor Wetzel and Tyler Johnson keyed CBU overcoming a one-run deficit in the ninth to force extras, which ended on a walk-off single from Jake Gallaway, as the Lancers rallied for a 4-3 win over the Yellowjackets Wednesday at James W. Totman Stadium. The results moves CBU to 7-8 and MSUB to 5-12, with the second game coming Thursday at 6 p.m.

"It feels great to start off the series with a win like this," Gallaway said. "You can't win a series in the first game, like coach always says, but this gives us a lot of momentum."

While no one had multiple hits for the Lancers, a total of 10 had base knocks. The offense was backed by another quality start from Adam Hofacket. The junior struck out seven through 6 2/3 innings pitched, which included six hits and three walks.

Reliever Austen Zimarik (2-2) picked up his second win of the year after giving up two hits, but striking out four in the last 2 1/3 for CBU.

After a two-run third inning, the Lancers led for most of Wednesday's game, but the Yellowjackets took control of the contest, 3-2, with a two-run seventh and another run in the eighth.

MSUB held to its lead, 4-3, going into the bottom of the ninth, as Wetzel was called on to lead off the inning as a pinch hitter. Without hesitation, he lined a single into right-center field and was swapped out for pinch-runner Alec Morabito.

Gallaway laid down a sacrifice bunt to put the lead runner in scoring position, which brought on Johnson in another big situation as a pinch hitter. Johnson jumped on the first pitch and sent a hard roller through the middle into center field, which gave Morabito plenty of enough time to score and send the game into extras.

"It was a first-pitch fastball that was supposed to be outside that missed," Johnson said. "I just wanted to go out there and do my job."

Outside of a hit by pitch, Zimarik kept Montana State Billings from getting anything going by striking out two batters in the top of the 10^th.

Stephen Lohr struck out to start the bottom half of the frame, but some heads up play sent him to first base safely after a passed ball. Antonio Chavarria produced a huge line single into left center to move Lohr to second.

Another pinch-hit hero, Steven Pena put the pressure on the Yellowjackets defense with what was intended to be a sacrifice bunt. The fielder rushed in hopes of getting the lead runner at third, but it resulted in a fielding error that put a runner on every base with no outs.

After a pop-out to third for the first out, Gallaway stepped up in another big situation. Looking to just get a ball deep into the outfield for a sacrifice fly, the junior transfer took a big hack at the first pitch he saw and sent a shot to shortstop that was too hot to handle to end the game.

"I was just looking for a pitch high in the zone, so I was thinking the first pitch might be the one," Gallaway said. "He actually threw me a slider and I was able to get a good piece of it."

The Lancers scored their first two runs on a RBI bunt single from Andy Crowley and sacrifice fly from Chavarria. Norris started the inning with a walk and moved to third on a perfectly executed hit-and-run play, as Brian Ruhm singles through the right side.