For Jake
Bruml PO ’15 and the rest of his Sagehen baseball squad, the season started out
with a flurry of runs, long balls and excitement. Against the University of Puget Sound Feb. 8, Bruml stepped into the box in the bottom of the third inning with his team in an early
5-2 deficit and in need of an offensive boost.
“In my first at-bat of the
inning I got a fastball on the inner half and was on time,” said Bruml, who played both designated hitter and pitcher in the game. “I knew
it was gone when I hit it, which is always a nice feeling.”
Bruml’s two-run
homer pulled the Sagehens within one run of the Loggers. After the team batted
around, scoring four more runs, Bruml came up again with two men on base.
“When I came up for the second at-bat I was just trying to keep the inning going—we were having such a great
rally,” Bruml said. “I knew I wouldn’t see many fastballs because of what
happened in the last at-bat, but I was able to work it to a full count. The
pitcher had to throw a fastball again, and I was able to stay short and
surprisingly hit it out.”
Both of Bruml’s
blasts, a part of his 5-6 hitting performance, and his effort on the mound
helped the Pomona-Pitzer baseball team (2-2) pull out a 19-17 win.
“We always expect the best for ourselves,” second baseman Kenny Rabin PO ’15 said. “P-P has a history of
being a winning program and we expect to win a SCIAC championship and a
regional berth. Then we’ll see where the playoff road takes us.”
The day before the 19-17 victory, the Sagehens won their first game of the season when they split a
doubleheader against Whitworth University. In the first game, catcher Kevin Jordan PZ
’17 broke a 7-7 tie in the bottom of the seventh with an RBI single and
eventually scored the go-ahead run as the Hens won 9-8.
“Getting the first win of the
season always feels great,” Bruml said. “It’s like a weight is lifted such that
we don’t need to feel like we have to press to get a win.”
With the first weekend of the season in the books,
the Sagehens must quickly shift their attention to the upcoming three-game series
against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Feb. 13 and Feb. 14. To say P-P is excited to play the Stags is an understatement.
“We’re fired up to play our rivals; we’ve done well against
them in the four years that my class has been here, and we hope to keep that
going,” Rabin said. “All conference games are tough, but we are poised to make a run this year.
You better believe we are going to come out firing Friday afternoon.”
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