LA VERNE, CA. – The Pomona-Pitzer Baseball team fell to McMurray 8-7 in the opening game of their NCAA Regional on Friday morning at Ben Hines Field.
 
Season Impact: With the loss, the Sagehens fall to 30-16 overall and are now one loss away from their season ending in the NCAA Tournament.
 
The Sagehens were led by Jack Gold, Greg Pierantoni and William Kinney who all had two hits in the loss. JC Ng, Cooper Berry, Sammy Lee, and Jimmy Legg all notched a hit as well with Ng, Berry, Kinney and Lee registering RBIs. Max Brunngraber ended up with the loss but did a fantastic job keeping the Sagehens in the game along with fellow reliver Eli Della Bitta.
 
The Sagehens jumped ahead in their first at-bats with Berry getting a ground ball RBI to take a 1-0 lead.  The Warhawks answered with a run in the top of the second, but the trouble inning was the top of the third for Pomona-Pitzer in which they allowed five runs off of five hits to take a 6-1 lead.  
 
McMurray grew its lead to 7-1 before the Sagehens' offense started to chip away with two runs in the fourth off of a Ng double, one in the fifth off of an error, and two more in the seventh off of RBI's from Lee and Kinney to get within one run at 7-6 heading into the eighth. 
 
Pomona-Pitzer went on to tie the game in the eighth after a Berry double in the gap, but the Warhawks reclaimed their lead in the top of the ninth after a leadoff triple came in to score making it 8-7 heading to the bottom of the ninth.
 
The Sagehens had a big chance to tie and potentially win the win in their last at-bats, but McMurray was able to close out the game with the winning run on first to hand the Sagehens the loss in the opening round of the NCAA Regional.
 
Up Next: The Sagehens will play the loser of game two on Saturday, May 17^th at 8:30 a.m. at Ben Hines Field.