WARRENSBURG, Mo. (March 19, 2016) -- Ethan Westphal tossed seven shutout innings and three UCM pitchers combined on a three-hit shutout as the Mules beat Nebraska-Kearney 3-0 on Saturday afternoon at Crane Stadium/Tompkins Field.
Westphal (3-1) allowed an infield single in the second inning and that was it as he earned his third win of the season. He struck out nine batters in the game and walked only two. He allowed just one leadoff batter to reach base, in the seventh inning, and only one baserunner advanced to second during his seven innings.
The Mules (11-7, 9-2 MIAA) jumped on the board in the second on
Cole Distler's RBI single to left.
Bennett Oliver had led off the inning with a double and went to third on a sac bunt from
Derek Cornell. UCM extended the lead to 2-0 in the third when
Dylan Farrell's double down the left field line scored
Jackson Schnurbusch.
The lead stood there until the seventh. Distler led off with a double and went to third on
Matt Safranek's sacrifice bunt and scored on Schnurbusch's sac fly to right to make it 3-0 in favor of UCM.
Lucas Williams came on to pitch the eighth for the Mules and needed just 10 pitches to retire the side with two strikeouts and a fly out.
Grant Gavin came on in the ninth looking for the save. He allowed a leadoff single and a walk, but came back to strike out Kyle Honeycutt before another single loaded the bases. He got pinch-hitter Josh Estrada to ground in to a game-ending 6-4-3 double play to pick up his second save of the season.
Distler finished the day 3-for-3 with a double, triple, RBI and a run scored, his third multi-hit game of the season.
Mitchell Robinson (0-3) took the loss for Nebraska-Kearney (10-10, 7-4 MIAA) after allowing three runs on eight hits over seven innings.
The Mules will go for the series sweep on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. The game can be heard live on 1450 KOKO and warrensburgradio.com with
Bob Jackson and
Ricky Rivera on the call.
