Box Scores:
Game 1 /
Game 2
By Sean Leahy
BroncoAthletics.com
SCHEDULE NOTE: The Broncos' baseball squad has added a game to its schedule. CPP will challenge Concordia on Wednesday, April 20 at 3 p.m. That contest will be played on the Broncos' campus at Scolinos Field.
POMONA, Calif. - The Cal Poly Pomona baseball team picked up another rout to start Saturday's doubleheader, defeating the visiting Cal State East Bay squad by a score of 14-1. The Pioneers rallied to take the second contest though, securing a 3-0 victory to earn the split.
The Broncos now stand at 18-11 overall and 12-11 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. CSUEB holds marks of 9-23 overall and 7-18 through conference action.
Game One: CPP 14, CSUEB 1
CPP starter
Kevin Bosson continued to establish himself as one of the dominant pitchers in the CCAA, cruising through eight innings of work Saturday while scattering two hits and racking up eight strikeouts.
Although the Pioneers managed to take a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning, the Broncos' attack rallied for 14 unanswered scores to give Bosson plenty of breathing room.
CPP scored one in the bottom half of the second, as
Mike Neff recorded a sacrifice fly to bring
Jordan Whitman home. Although the score remained 1-1 through the fourth inning, the Broncos broke through for plenty of scores in the second half of the contest.
Travis Taijeron delivered the big knock in the fifth inning, lifting a three-run homerun over the right field fence. Four different CPP players got RBI singles in the sixth inning, including
Allen Rodarte,
Stephen Gonzalez, Whitman and
Jenzen Torres. Six runs in the sixth put the Broncos ahead, 10-1.
The CPP offense tacked on four more scores in the eighth, with three of those runs coming from a Torres homerun. It marked his third homer in the past two days. In total, the Broncos racked up 17 hits to CSUEB's three.
Bosson's eight innings matches his career high and he improves his record to 6-2 overall in the 2011 campaign. Torres finished game one with five runs batted in while going 3-for-3 at the plate with two walks. Taijeron went 2-for-5 with four RBI.
Game Two: CSUEB 3, CPP 0
Jake Reed got the last-minute call from Broncos' head coach Randy Betten to take the mound in game two of Saturday's doubleheader. Reed - making his first start of the 2011 season - was looking to improve his record to 4-2 on the season and ride the wave of a surging CPP offense.
Things started off well for Reed, but the right-hander would run into some trouble with two outs in the second inning. After a leadoff single from CSUEB's Lincoln Clapper, designated hitter Christopher Houston would line out into a double play. The play came in thanks to an acrobatic snag from Goodman. who tagged Clapper out in the process, preventing a basehit and stalling a Pioneer rally.
However, Josh Rush would double down the left field line and would later be driven in on a single by Scott Shields, putting CSUEB ahead 1-0.
That one run would be the only offense the Pioneers would need as starting pitcher Brandyn Bell stifled the CPP attack. The right-hander kept the Broncos off balance all game, as the CPP hitters were struggling to hit the ball squarely for the first time this series.
Bell went all seven innings, giving up just three hits and hurling his first complete game shutout of the season.
The Broncos' only legitimate threat came in the final inning of the contest when Bell walked Taijeron and Whitman to start the inning. This brought up Torres - who had already hit three homeruns in the series - as the potential game-tying run. Torres couldn't deliver as he struck out. Bell would then proceed to strike out Miller and induce an infield popup from Tyson Edwards to end the inning and the game.
The Broncos and Pioneers will wrap up the four-game series on Sunday morning. First pitch is scheduled for 11 a.m. at Scolinos Field.
