POMONA, Calif. - With a 5.2 inning performance by Max Bethell, the ninth-ranked Cal Poly Pomona Broncos baseball team secured a 3-2 home victory over the Cal Baptist Lancers on Thursday.
 
Bethell's showing included a pair of strikeouts and just four hits allowed. The junior posted 79 pitches in the game and didn't allow a run. The Garden Grove native adds another win to his season, pulling his tally up to 2-0.
 
The win improves the Broncos to an overall 9-2 mark on the season. Coming in to close and earn his sixth save of the year was J.J. Franklin.
 
To take a bit of the load off Bethell after the lefty saw just three batters in the first, the Broncos gave him some offensive support in the bottom half of the inning. After Kyle Garlick drew a walk and advanced to second on a wild pitch, a grounder by Michael Zidek brought him to third base, where he would only wait for a couple of pitches. With two balls and no strikes, Nick Cooksey sent a towering shot over the left field fence to put CPP up 2-0.
 
Three up, three down for Bethell again in the top of the second, and the Green and Gold offense would tack on another run. Michael Erb led off the inning by walking and was moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Ryan Webberley. Christian Kelley comes up to bat and sends a single to right field, which produced another CPP run as Erb crossing home put the Broncos up 3-0.

Two opportunities came up for the Lancers to gain an advantage, but CPP stifled both of them. In the top of the third, with two outs, the visitors popped up in foul territory on a play that looked as though it would just be a long strike. Matt Muñoz darted over to the line and made a beautiful diving play to come up with the ball and end the inning. In the sixth inning, Jacob Bernardy would play the hero as a long drive right to the fence caused the freshman to have to scale the wall to make the grab, but that he did and prevented a Lancer run from scoring.  
 
The remainder of Bethell's time saw neither team score. Reliever Ryan Alsworth closed out the sixth inning with a called strike three.
 
With the seventh inning coming up, the Broncos would again see another pitcher as Ryan Olson took to the mound. He added two strikeouts in five batters faced and dealt just 21 pitches through one complete inning.
 
Cal Baptist would catch a bit of a break in the eighth as they led off with a single. Austin Boyle was called in to finish the inning up for Olson with a runner on first and nobody out. The Lancers sent a double down the left field line that advanced runners to second and third. Just one more batter was all Boyle was allowed as CBU grounded out to short stop and scored their first run.
 
After the run scored, Bronco closer Franklin was brought in. He gave up a triple then struck out the final batter in the inning. In the bottom of the ninth, Franklin added three more strikeouts as he got two guys swinging and one looking.
 
The Broncos will return to action Friday with a doubleheader at Cal Baptist. The first game is set to begin at 3 p.m. CPP will return home on Saturday to close out the series against the Lancers.    

 

Ranked 9th nationally, @calpolypomona baseball defeated Cal Baptist 3-2 today! And nothing is better than free t-shirts...

A video posted by Cal Poly Pomona Broncos (@cppbroncos) on Feb 26, 2015 at 5:53pm PST