Westmont baseball rolled to an 8-1 victory over Cal State Monterey Bay in the NCAA Division II West Regional on Friday at Russ Carr Field.
The Warriors are now one win away from clinching a spot in their first-ever NCAA Super Regional in the program’s first postseason-eligible year in Division II.
Westmont and Cal State Monterey Bay will square off again on Saturday at 11 a.m. If the Otters win that game, they force a winner-take-all game at 2 p.m.
As for Friday’s matchup, the Warriors leaned on a strong showing on the bump from the duo of Bryan Peck and Caden Beloian.
Peck got the start and allowed one run on five hits while striking out four in 6 â…“ innings. Beloian then took over and fired 2 â…” one-hit frames to finish off the win.
Meanwhile, the Westmont offense scored two runs in the first, two in the third and put the cherry on top with a four-run eighth inning.
In the bottom of the first, Daniel Patterson gave the Warriors an early 2-0 lead on a booming two-run homer.
Grant Yzermans then slugged a big fly of his own, a solo shot in the third to make it 3-0. Bryce McFeely added onto the lead in that frame with an RBI sacrifice fly to score Michael Soper.
Cal State Monterey Bay’s lone run came on a solo homer in the top of the sixth.
In the bottom of the eighth, Westmont ran away with the game thanks to a Shane Hofstadler solo home run, an RBI single by Soper and a two-run double off the bat of Patterson.
Patterson, Soper, Hofstadler and Zach Mora tallied two hits apiece, while Soper scored twice and Patterson drove in a game-high four runs.