TACOMA, Wash. — Puget Sound used a dominant pitching performance in the first game and a timely rally in the night cap to take two games from Pacific in baseball action on Saturday at Logger Field, 5-3 and 8-5.
Puget Sound improved to 6-9 on the season with the victories and to 4-4 in the Northwest Conference. The Boxers dropped to 7-9 overall and to 3-5 in conference play.
In the first game, Puget Sound rode the arm of Collin Maier to the win. Maier shut the Boxers down for eight innings, allowing only five hits, two walks and he fanned 10.
Maier dueled with Pacific starting hurler
Paul Wolfram through four shutout innings until the Loggers finally scratched across an unearned run in the fifth. UPS added two more scores in the sixth, using a pair of hits, two hit batters and a passed ball to take a 3-0 lead.
With Maier's day done after eight innings, the Boxers made things interesting in the ninth.
Ben Duerr had an RBI-double and
Walker Olis beat out an infield single to drive in another run. Duerr would later score on a wild pitch to make the count 5-3, but that's where it would stay when a ground out ended the game.
Duerr had two two-baggers in the game and
Ben Roquet had two hits as well. Chris Zerio went 3-for-3 for the Loggers.
Pacific took an early lead in the second game on Roquet's solo home run to centerfield, but that would only begin a series of lead changes or ties throughout the game. The Boxers would tie the game in the top half of the seventh on
Joey Galeno's two-run homer (5-5), but Puget Sound would answer in the bottom half of the inning with three runs of their own to take an 8-5 lead.
That's how the score would stay as Logger relievers Merle Rowan-Kennedy and Kian Kurokawa combined to pitch the final 2.2 innings without allowing a hit and they also fanned four Pacific batters.
Pacific had three errors in the game and just seven hits. No Boxer had more than one base knock in game two. Nick Funyak had three hits, including two doubles, and three RBI for the Loggers.
The Boxers and Loggers will wrap up the three-game series with a single game on Sunday at noon.
