Westmont dropped the opening game of the PacWest Baseball Championship to Point Loma Nazarene by a score of 9-2 on Wednesday at Russell Carr Field in Montecito.
The Warriors will now look to keep their season alive in an elimination game against Concordia, who fell to Fresno Pacific, on Thursday at 9 a.m., back at Russell Carr Field.
Meanwhile, Point Loma Nazarene and Fresno Pacific will square off on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. with the winner advancing to the PacWest Championship game.
Wednesday’s conference tournament opener began with three scoreless frames as Westmont starter Caden Beloian and Point Loma’s Matt Garrison kept the opposing offenses off the board early.
However, Point Loma struck with an RBI double in the fourth to take a 1-0 lead and followed that by plating four runs in the bottom of the fifth to balloon the lead to 5-0.
The Warriors got one run back in the sixth on a solo homer off the bat of Tanner Beltowski, but the Point Loma offense stayed hot with four more runs in the seventh to run away with a 9-1 advantage.
Westmont rounded out the scoring with an RBI single by Jesse Di Maggio in the ninth to bring the game to its final score of 9-2.