VANCOUVER, B.C. – Dominant starting pitching from
Zach Draper and
Riley O'Brien limited a pair of foes to just one run on the day, as the College of Idaho moved within one win of a trip to the NAIA National Championships with two victories at the NAIA West Grouping Championships at Thunderbird Park.
Draper struck out eight batters in a complete game 6-1 victory over Oregon Tech, while O'Brien struck out 10 batters over seven-plus innings, as C of I (23-28) shutout host and top-seed British Columbia, 3-0.
The Coyotes will play the winner of tonight's UBC-OIT match-up tomorrow at Noon (PT) – needing a win to send the club to their second-straight NAIA Opening Round Bracket – while UBC or OIT would have to beat the Yotes twice to punch their ticket.
In the morning game, C of I scored the first six runs of the contest and cruised to the victory. The Yotes broke through in the third inning, as
Johnny Hyland singled home
Ryan Murkle from third base to make it 1-0, while an inning later, Murkle delivered a two-out, two RBI single.
C of I scored single runs in each of the final three innings – as
Bobby Wright doubled home a run in the seventh;
Cole Mansanarez blasted his ninth homer of the year in the eighth; with the Yotes adding an unearned run on an OIT (18-28) error on a Mansanarez single in the ninth.
Draper worked around seven singles and did not walk a man to earn his fifth win of 2017. Five different Coyotes – Hyland, Mansanarez, Murkle,
Austin Van Horne and
Hunter Hanson – all had two hit games.
The Coyotes struck in the first inning of Game 2 against UBC (31-15) ace Conor Noble, stringing together three singles – the last, an RBI knock from
Dominic Conigliaro, to take the lead. Van Horne added an RBI single in the sixth and
Dalton Ridgway singled in a run in the eighth for insurance.
O'Brien did the rest – working out of jam after jam, as UBC stranded 11 runners. The T-Birds had runners at first and third with one out in the third, but the Yotes snuffed out a squeeze bunt and O'Brien got a fly out to end the threat. UBC loaded the bases in the fourth and had two men on in the sixth and eighth innings – but did not score.
Miles Bigelow worked out of the eighth inning jam, getting a ground ball out and worked around a ninth inning single for his second save.
Ridgway went 3-for-4 for the Yotes, with Hyland adding two hits; while Vinny Martin went 3-for-4 for UBC.
