Baseball Falls To George Fox 5-2 In Series Opener
The Centenary baseball team fell 5-2 to the George Fox University Bruins on Thursday evening in the opener of a four-game weekend series at the Curtis and Margaret Morse Athletic Fields.
Newberg, Ore. - The Centenary baseball team fell 5-2 to the George Fox University Bruins on Thursday evening in the opener of a four-game weekend series at the Curtis and Margaret Morse Athletic Fields.
The Diamond Gents (3-6) and Bruins (1-3) will continue the series on Friday with a doubleheader beginning at 1 PM. The series finale is set for Saturday at 2 PM. Live stats and live video for the games are available at the link below:
https://www.gocentenary.com/sports/bsb/2025-26/schedule
The Bruins struck first with a run in the bottom of the first and then added three in the third to take a 4-0 lead. After George Fox scored once more in the fifth to lead 5-0, the Diamond Gents finally got on the board with a run in the top of the sixth. The Maroon and White added one in the top of the eighth but would get no closer.
Centenary finished with seven hits, two walks, nine strikeouts, two errors, and left 11 on base while George Fox had six hits, did not draw a walk, struck out seven times, made one error, and left three on base.
Freshman UTL Garritt Romero (Manvel, Texas) started on the mound for Centenary and suffered the loss as he allowed five runs, four earned, and six hits in six innings of work. He did not walk a batter and struck out seven but allowed two home runs and hit one batter. He threw 104 pitches and faced 25 batters as he fell to 0-2 on the season.
Sophomore UTL Turner Mclelland (Minden, La.) relieved Romero and pitched two innings and did not allow a run or a hit with no BB or K and hit one batter.
Bryan Ho (1-0) started and pitched five innings to get the win for the Bruin while throwing just 61 pitches. He did not allow a run on only four hits with no BB and seven K's. Ho hit three of the 21 batters he faced but was not hurt by them.
Joey Wilcox followed Ho and pitched two innings and allowed one earned run and one hit with a BB and a K and hit one batter. Luke Bell went an inning and gave up one earned run and two hits and also hit a batter. Cole Schmidt then worked the ninth and picked up the save with one BB, one K, and one HBP.
Junior SS Vance Sartor (Prescott Valley, Ariz.) led the Centenary offense with a season-high three hits and senior 2B Clay Menard (Berwick, La.) had two. Sophomore CF Blaine Birkelbach (Pearland, Texas) and sophomore 3B Aron Gillum (Shreveport, La.) each had one hit. Sartor was 3-4 with an RBI, Gillum also drew a BB and scored a run, and sophomore RF Noah Paulson (El Lago, Texas) also scored once and had a BB.
Jayson Au hoy hit a solo home run in the first and BJ Tokushima had a two-RBI double in the third for a 3-0 lead. Tokushima then scored stole third base and scored on an error in the fifth and Joey Marasco homered to make it 5-0.
The Diamond Gents' first run in the sixth came as Sartor was picked off but Paulson raced home to make it 5-1. Then in the eighth, Sartor singled to score Gillum to make it 5-2. Centenary had multiple scoring chances but left two men on base in the second, third, eighth, and ninth innings. Trailing by three headed to the top of the ninth, Schmidt came on for Bell and freshman UTL Parker Seago (Orange, Texas) pinch-hit to lead off and grounded out.
Birkelbach then grounded out but Menard was hit by a pitch. Gillum walked to force Schmidt into a pressure situation with the potential tying run coming to the plate. Schmidt though struck out Paulson looking to end the game.
See the complete Diamond Gents' season schedule here: https://www.gocentenary.com/sports/bsb/2025-26/schedule
Information on Season Tickets and single game tickets is available at the following link: https://fan.hudl.com/usa/la/shreveport/organization/69826/centenary-college-of/tickets
For more information or to donate to Centenary athletics and the baseball program, visit gocentenary.com/gocentenary/C_Club.
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