By Alex Franco

Sports Editor

Saturday afternoon the 20-2 Cougars baseball  took on Point Loma Nazarene University who will be a familiar foe of the Cougars in the coming years as CSUSM leaps into the NCAA.

The Cougars wasted no time setting the tone for the first game of the scheduled doubleheader when they sprinted out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning. With the bases loaded, Kody Sepulveda came through with a hard ground ball to the shortstop to bring around Kyle Secciani for the score. Kyle Kuck brought around two more runs with his single which found its way in between the first and second basemen to take the 3-0 lead.

Kuck came through in the third inning with another 2 RBI single to the right field to score Bentson and Belzer to finish 2-3 with a team high 4 RBIs. Marcus Meraz and Mike Guadagnini would both add 2 more RBIs to put the Cougars up 7-0 at the end of the third inning.

PLNU scored 2 more runs in the seventh inning to pull within one of the Cougars before Kenny Belzer belted a solo homerun to left field to increase the lead 8-5. The solo homerun by Belzer would ultimately be the deciding run in the game as Point Loma scored 2 runs early in the eighth to come a run within the Cougars and finishing the game 8 – 7.

The second game was more back and forth run scoring battle between the Sea Lions and Cougars with Point Loma scoring 2  and ending the third with a 3 – 2 lead

Brandon Bentson and Kenny Belzer would come through for the Cougars in a big way when they would hit back to back clutch hits in the fifth inning. Belzer doubled to left center field to score while Tyler Bernard, and Bentson singled right after to bring around Belzer. In the game’s final frame, Hertzmann would once again be called upon to shut the door and seal the win for the Cougars.

“Hertzmann had a great in closing, he came in twice and did a great job for us, but we are playing great as a team and winning the close games we were losing last year,” coach Dennis Pugh said. “Today was a great example that we can do something other than pitch, our pitching wasn’t the best but today we did a good job with the bat with the comeback in the second game.”

CSUSM now sits 22-2 this season going into a stretch of games which Coach Pugh says will be a good test for them against teams like San Diego Christian who they play today and tomorrow at home.