Titans Take 3 out of 4 From Pierce, Stay Atop West
The winning streak ended at 14 but an impressive weekend for Tacoma kept the Titans in a tie for first place in the NWAC Western Region. A similar weekend for the Lower Columbia Red Devils has the meeting between these two teams in the final series of the regular season full of playoff seeding implications.
TCC kicked off the series with Pierce at Minnitti Field on Saturday and continued their recent high scoring ways with a 10-1 beating of the Raiders. Tacoma's ace Garrett Westberg got the start for the Titans and allowed just one run on three hits over 7 ? innings to improve his record to 5-0.
Pierce scored their only run in the top of the first with a one out triple followed by a ground out to take a 1-0 lead. That would be it for them as the Titans went in front for good in the third on Kenton Robillard's lead-off double and a single by Jordan Stoner following Dominick Zombik's sac bunt. Stoner later scored on Taylor Adams' two out single to put TCC up 2-1.
Colin Wolf, who also had an impressive defensive day at shortstop for TCC, crushed a one out solo home run in the sixth. Tacoma scored another run after Peter Perkins singled, advanced to third and Zombik drove him in with a base hit.
With the Titans up 4-1, Adams drew a walk in the seventh and crossed the plate on Alex McGarry's triple. Wolf drove in his second run of the game with a sac fly to score McGarry. The Titans were not done scoring though as they sent eight batters to the plate in the eighth, collecting four runs on four hits for the 10-1 final
The second game Saturday was a much lower scoring contest as three TCC pitchers combined for a 3-0 shutout. The trio struck out eight Pierce batters and allowed just three hits over the course of the game.
All of Tacoma's scoring took place in the bottom of the first inning when nine batters stepped up and took advantage of two Pierce errors to score three runs on just two hits. Pierce pitchers found their groove after the first allowing just four TCC base runners the rest of the way but the Titan pitching and defense held the lead.
Pierce got a bit of revenge in the first game Sunday at Mt. Tahoma High School but the Titans made them work for an 11-8 win, snapping TCC's win streak.
Tacoma jumped on top 1-0 early when Owen Parsons drew a walk and later scored on the first of five Raider errors in the game.
McGarry scored in the third on Perkins' RBI double to put TCC up 2-0 heading into the middle innings. It was the sixth inning when Pierce bats got hot. 11 batters tallied six hits to plate seven runs and give the Raiders a short-lived 7-2 lead.
Tacoma answered with six runs of their own in the top of the seventh to retake the lead 8-7 thanks to three more Raider errors. Pierce however, closed out the scoring in their half of the frame with four runs and seal their only win of the weekend.
The Titans bounced back in the series finale with an 8-6, extra inning win, keeping the stage set for a showdown with Lower Columbia.
The second game Sunday was led offensively by Adams' 4-for-5 game and two hit efforts by Stoner, Perkins, and McGarry, who launched his first homer of the season in the sixth inning.
Tacoma's next action comes Wednesday May 3rd when they travel to Portland to play Clackamas Community College. First game will begin at 2:00pm followed by a second at 4:30pm.