Professional baseball hall of famer Ernie Banks used to say, “It’s a beautiful day for a ball game… let’s play two!”
The Bellevue College men’s baseball team travelled to Lacey, Washington on a beautiful sun-soaked Monday afternoon last week and did just that, sweeping a double header of baseball against conference rival Olympic.
The first game, which the Bulldogs won 1-0, was the definition of a pitchers dual.
Bryan Burgher, a 6’3 right-handed pitcher from Puyallup, got the start for Bellevue and put forth a dominating effort, pitching seven innings, allowing no runs and only two hits on just one walk. Matching his efforts was Olympic starting pitcher Kyle McKay from Ferndale. McKay allowed four hits and one run with five strikeouts over seven innings.
The score remained knotted at zero a piece until the top of the sixth inning, when BC center fielder Max Brown ripped his fourth double of the season. Two batters later, Colin Hering stepped to the plate and drove Brown home with his eighth RBI of the year. That was all the offense starting pitcher Burgher needed to secure the win for Bellevue as the Bulldogs shut down Olympic for 1-0 victory.
The second game displayed an explosion of offensive firepower, as Bellevue erupted for 12 runs on ten hits. Jeff Gonzales, a 6’0 right-handed sophomore, got the start for the Bulldogs and pitched five strong innings, allowing just two hits, three walks and two strikeouts without any runs.
Bellevue got on the scoreboard early when Tyler Baumgartner added to his team lead in RBI’s (15) with a double that drove home Dustin Breshears. They added four more runs in the second inning and five more in the third before chasing out Olympic starting pitcher Devin Smith, who exited pitching only two innings, allowing seven earned runs on seven hits.
Baumgartner, a left-handed hitting sophomore from Poulsbo, has been the vocal point of the Bulldogs’ offense this season. Baumgartner leads the team in RBI’s (15), triples (4), stolen bases (5), and hits (33), all while batting an astonishing .429 at the plate. Baumgartner ranks in the top five in RBI and batting average among all the teams in the NWAACC conference.
As Olympic’s bullpen struggled, Bellevue continued to add to their lead in the sixth inning with a solo homerun from Hering. The three Olympic relief pitchers that appeared combined for three earned runs, with six walks and two strikeouts.
Olympic was unable to muster a semblance of an offense in either game, leaving a combined ten runners on base. The Bulldogs’ 12-run lead didn’t allow for a save opportunity as pitcher Steven Johnson came in and pitched a clean seventh inning, securing the shutout as Bellevue took the double-header sweep with a score of 12-0.
Bellevue currently sits with a 4-0 record in the North Region league play, tied with Edmonds for first place and a half game ahead of Everett. Overall, the Bulldogs are 18-3, having won seven in a row and nine of their last ten.