RIVERSIDE--- The California Baptist baseball program opened its three-game homestand against the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks in a doubleheader on Friday, picking up a pair of shutouts for another Western Athletic Conference series win. The bats were hot for the Lancers after returning to Totman Stadium after being on the road for five games as the squad combined for 18 hits and 17 runs across the 18-inning spread.
The Lancers started the day strong against SFA with a 10-0 victory in seven innings.
Lukas Pirko had a solid day on the mound, pitching six innings and allowing just two hits while sitting down four Lumberjacks. After
Josh Paino scored on a fielding error,
Shayne Simpson played clean-up and knocked a three-run homer over left field to open the scoring floodgates.
Mitchel Simon also homered during the first contest of the day and earned his 51st career home run as a Lancer, tying the all-time program record.
Luis Becerra finished the first contest of the day with a pair of strikeouts and kept SFA scoreless for the first shutout of the day.
The second game of the day led to the same results for the Lumberjacks after the Lancers secured the series with a 7-0 win. The offense got started early for CBU after
Nicholas Dumesnil hit his eighth home run of the season for a pair of runs in the first inning.
Matt Chavez picked up his first pair of hits as a Lancer and drove in two runs for CBU's third and fourth runs of the day.
Jake Skipworth got in on the scoring action and launched his first home run of the season, while Paino tallied two RBI with a clutch single to finalize the score.
Jacob Wilson was impressive on the mound for the Lancers, throwing five innings of action and allowing just a single hit while striking out four.
CBU improves its overall record to 22-13 and its conference record to 10-4, confirming second place in the WAC standings. Grand Canyon hangs at the top of the standings with a 10-3 WAC record as Abilene Christian trails just behind California Baptist with a 10-5 record. GCU and CBU are the only teams with conference win percentages over .710, but the Lancers are the only WAC team with a winning percentage over .600 in overall play.
California Baptist will close out the series with the Lumberjacks on Saturday at 11 A.M. in an effort to beat the rain before welcoming the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for a midweek tilt on Monday afternoon.
