Baseball wins with style on Senior night

BLAZER FIELD, April 30 –

Senior night served Blair's baseball team well Wednesday night, as the Blazers (8-8) once again dug themselves out of an early three-run hole and held on with sharp fielding for a victory over Northwest, 4-3.

Before the game, the team and fans honored four seniors: Ruben Aguirre, Carlos Mesa, Dylan Baird and Song Fu. But it was Mesa's fourth-inning triple that brought in two runs to even the score at 3-3, and then his subsequent steal home for the final edge over the struggling Jaguars.

"It just felt so good to find my swing at such an opportune time," Mesa said after the game. "Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come as we near the playoffs."

The Blazers started slow after the ceremony, allowing Northwest two runs on two hits and an error. Junior pitcher Josh Gordon limited the damage, however, forcing the final out with two runners on. Northwest added another run in the second on a two-out double to increase their lead to 3-0.

After this initial damage, though, Blair came back with a strong defensive outing, anchored by Baird's dependable play behind the plate. "We didn't let it snowball," head coach John MacDonald said. "After the first two innings, we made sure that was all we were going to give them."

In the bottom of the second, Aguirre got Blair's offense started with a double. Junior third baseman Brady Ettinger moved Aguirre to third a solid single up the gut, setting up Mesa for his first RBI of the night to cut the lead to 3-1.

Two innings later in the fourth, Blair once again led off with a double, this time from sophomore first baseman Alex Egber. Aguirre joined Egber with a walk, just in time for Mesa's second at bat. His base-clearing, game-tying triple in concert with a steal home, secured Blair's lead, albeit slim, at 4-3.

Freshman reliever Peirce Marston took over for Gordon in the fifth. Playing in a game dedicated to seniors, Marston might just as well have been one, grudging the Jaguars little. Even after allowing the tying run onto third in the sixth inning, Marston calmly struck the next Northwest player out and forced an easy infield grounder to evade the threat. The freshman finished the game and completed the save.

Even with the win, MacDonald is already looking forward. "We have four more games to playoffs," he explained, "and that's four more chances to prepare ourselves to go somewhere this postseason."

The Blazers' next home game is Monday, May 5 against Whitman at 7 p.m