AZUSA, Calif. – It took Azusa Pacific awhile, but the Cougars finally got their offensive machine in gear, scoring 17 runs in its final 5 innings of play to beat Purdue University North Central, 18-4, in the first game of the NAIA Baseball Championship Opening Round play Tuesday afternoon.
Senior third baseman Ryan Dowell led the offensive outburst by going 3-for-6 at the plate with 4 RBIs and hammering 1 of 5 Cougar home runs on the day. Fellow senior pitcher Christian Gagne worked a season-high 8 innings on the mound, yielding just 1 run while striking out 5 and not walking a batter.
The Cougars, who entered today's postseason action averaging 9 runs a game, managed just 1 hit through the first 4 innings, but it was an impactful safety, a 1-out solo home run over the left field fence by Ryan Delgado to give the Cougars a 1-0 lead in the second inning. It was the Cougars 100th home run of the season, a first in program history. Azusa Pacific didn't get another hit until Virgil Chavira led off the fifth with his seventh home run, just inside the leftfield foul pole.
"We typically don't see those types of pitchers, the ones who throw below 80 (miles per hour) and use a lot of off-speed pitches" said Azusa Pacific head coach Paul Svagdis. "We weren't sitting back and it took us some time to get adjusted to the Purdue pitchers."
Chavira's homer ignited Azusa Pacific, which added 2 more runs in the fifth, one coming off a Dowell double, to move out to a comfortable 4-0 lead.
That was enough of a cushion for Gagne, who made his fifth start of the season a masterful one as he danced around 9 hits to produce his finest showing of the campaign.
"We knew that by being a low seed we had to get through the first game with a minimal amount of pitchers," said Svagdis. "Christian was super today. He kept his strikes down in the zone and relied on the defense behind him to make the plays."
Indeed, the Cougar defense shined, turning a pair of double plays to help Gagne skirt trouble, while right fielder Eddie Crespo threw out Panther Shane Breitzke at home to end the first inning and keep PNC off the scoreboard.
Azusa Pacific added 3 more runs in the seventh inning off a pair of home runs, a 2-run shot by Dowell and a mammoth solo bomb by Brice Cutspec that travelled 415 feet over the centerfield fence for his school-record 29th round-tripper this season.
Purdue North Central finally touched Gagne for a run in the seventh inning when Breitzke singled home Greg Feltner with 2 outs.
Azusa Pacific came back with 3 runs in the eighth and brought 11 batters to the plate in the ninth, tallying 8 more runs, 3 of which came off Chris Feicht's tenth home run of the season.
"It's always tough to get the first playoff game out of the way," said Feicht, "and this feels great. Coach kept telling us to work on having quality at-bats and the runs would eventually come, and they did."
The Cougars have played just 5 games at home since March 28 but they've combined for 84 runs in those contests (16.8 avg.).
"We're the fourth seed and we barely got into the opening round, so our expectations aren't wild. We're just excited to be playing and be at home," Svagdis added. "It seems like it's been 800 games ago since we were home. It felt good to be here."
Feltner greeted Cougar reliever Scott Sakoda with a solo home run to lead off what would be a 3-run ninth inning for the Panthers. Feltner finished the day 2-for-4 with a pair of runs and an RBI.
With the victory, Azusa Pacific improves to 34-18 and will now take on Point Loma Nazarene University later today to conclude the opening day of play in Azusa, 1 of 9 sites around the country hosting opening round play of NAIA Baseball National Championship. Purdue North Central falls to 31-23 will play the loser of the Biola University/University of British Columbia, Wednesday at 11 a.m. (PDT), in an elimination game.
