The Cougar’s baseball game, originally scheduled for Feb. 18 was moved to Feb. 16 due to inclement weather. The following doubleheader in the series stuck to schedule and took place on Feb. 17.

On the first game CSUSM traveled to Concordia University in Irvine and came out victorious over the Eagles 14-8. Shawn Hunt got the start on the mound, but Brady Smith recorded the win by throwing 2.1 innings and striking out two.

Ryan Land of the Eagles hit his first home run of the season, but that wasn’t enough to keep up with the 16 hits by the Cougars.

The second game of the doubleheader happened to be a lower scoring event with the final being 2-1. Taylor Ahearn, the starting pitcher for the Cougars, threw a complete game striking out six.

Catcher Isaias Torres had four hits in seven at bats that day.  

Friday’s game the Cougars prevailed with a narrow 4-3 victory. Riley Manquen hit his first collegiate home run in the bottom of the fourth inning, breaking the 3-3 tie.

The second game on Friday proved to be more successful with a final score of 10-9.

CSUSM down 7-9 as they entered the bottom of the seventh inning, but earned three runs in the final inning. Tyler Place came in to pinch hit and drew a bases loaded walk to end the game.

When asking Tyler Place after the game about his thrilling walk-off base on balls, he said “I for sure wasn’t going to swing. I realized I had a pitch to waste [the count was 3-1].”  

On the first game of Friday, Place banged up his knee, prohibiting him from entering the second game until the very end.

He said, “it’s sore, but we have three days off, so I’m going to go get treatment this week and I should be good by conference.”

The Cougars have now improved their record to 10 wins and 2 losses, when asked about the team’s victories Coach Matt Guiliano said “Good, but there are still a lot of areas we need to clean up. I think our coaching staff needs to do a little bit better of a job getting these guys to execute and trusting the process.”

On Feb. 24, the Cougars are scheduled to play UCSD at 6 p.m. The next home game will be on Feb. 25 against the UCSD in a doubleheader with the first game starting at 11 a.m. and the second at 2 p.m.