With hot and cold streaks down the stretch, Loyola Marymount University’s baseball team entered the last week of regular season play still hopeful of post-season action.
The Lions are 27-20 overall, 14-10 in West Coast Conference play as they open the five-game final week with a game at Cal State Bakersfield May 13, then play their last four at home — a non-conference battle with USC May 14, and a three-game set with Gonzaga May 17-19 at Page Stadium.
Going into the weekend, the Lions were in fourth place, three games behind conference leader BYU (17-7) and trailing Gonzaga (16-8) and St. Mary’s (14-9).
After a 5-4 win at St. Mary’s April 19, LMU dropped four straight, including back-to-back shutout losses at Pepperdine before winning the series finale 5-1 on April 28 behind clutch pithing by Matt Voelker and Nick Frasso who surrendered 11 hits but only one run. Cooper Uhl drove in three of LMU’s five runs.
The Lions then scored two unearned runs in the ninth to pull out a 6-5 win at Cal State Long Beach, with Brandon Shearer’s single driving home the go-ahead run. They followed that with a 5-1 home win over BYU as Alex Lambeau collected three hits, but dropped the next two to the Cougars, 8-5 and 10-3, with Shearer’s three-run homerun in the second game one of the few highlights.
Softball
LMU sophomores Molly Grumbo and Delanie Wisz were named to the West Coast Conference 2019 Softball All-Academic Team, and senior Hannah Bandimere made Honorable Mention.
Students who had at least a 3.20 GPA and were significant contributors to the team were considered for the 12-person roster. Grumbo, majoring in finance, has a 3.47 GPA; Wisz, majoring in psychology, has a 3.32 GPA.
On the field, the Lions were nosed out of the WCC title by BYU, which swept its final series from St. Mary’s to win the title at 12-3 to LMU’s 11-4. The Lions had the better overall mark, 35-18 to BYU’s 29-24.
Women's water polo
LMU was beaten in the finals of the Golden Coast Conference Tournament in Fresno April 28, losing 13-9 to top-seeded Pacific.
The Lions, seeded third, won their first two matches of the tournament, 13-8 over Cal Baptist and 10-5 over second-seeded San Diego. Seniors Sky Flores from Commerce and Hana Villanova from Spain were named to the all-tournament team.
Mike Nelson is the former editor of The Tidings (predecessor of Angelus News).
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