Mustangs swept away by Vanguard

TMU baseball coach Monte Brooks summed up Saturday's doubleheader sweep at the hands of Vanguard with two words:
 
"Bad day."
 
It didn't seemed to matter whether the Mustangs scored plenty of runs or pitched well enough to win, losing 9-8 and 2-1.
 
The twinbill defeat culminated a lost weekend in Costa Mesa for the Mustangs, who dropped all three GSAC games to the Lions and fell to 7-5 in conference play and 13-7 overall.
 
They trail first-place William Jessup by three games.
 
In the opener, the Mustangs fell behind early 3-0, rallied to take an 8-5 lead halfway through the game, and then watched the Lions do something TMU had made a recent habit of doing: come back to win the game.
 
The Lions roughed up and then chased TMU starter Eric Williams after just two innings of work, scoring those first three runs.
 
They wound up scoring in each of the first five innings.
 
The Mustangs sliced into the deficit in the third, scoring on an Aaron Shackelford groundout that plated Pearson Good, who had been hit to lead off the frame.
 
After giving up another run in the last of the third, the Mustangs caught the Lions in the top of the fourth.  Josh Robison's team-leading fifth home run of the year, a two-run shot, made it a 4-3 game and later Adam Rubio's sacrifice fly scored Ryan Bricker with the tying run.
 
Vanguard snapped the tie with a run in the last of the fourth but the Mustangs countered with a four-run fifth and Robison was responsible for half of those tallies with a two-run single through the right side that scored Max Maitland and Preston White with the go-ahead runs.
 
One batter later, Rubio gave the Mustangs an 8-5 lead with a two-run base hit that scored Bricker and Robison.
 
Robison (3-4, 4 rbi) and Rubio (2-3, 3 rbi) combined for six hits and seven rbi.
 
Vanguard answered with a run in the last of the fifth to get within two runs and then tied the game in the seventh on a single and a TMU error.
 
Then, in the eighth, the Lions completed their come-from-behind effort with a single off Mustang reliever Preston White (3-3) to move ahead 9-8.
 
The Mustangs had no answer in their final at-bat, going down in order for the third time in the final four innings.
 
The offenses showed up in the opener.  They didn't in the nightcap.
 
TMU's Nate Bonsell and Vanguard's Schuyler Hill were responsible for that.
 
Bonsell (2-1) went five strong innings, allowing two runs on four hits.
 
Hill was even better, going six frames of three-hit ball and striking out four.
 
Bonsell's only hiccup cost him.  It came in the second inning when the Lions loaded the bases on two singles and a hit batsman in front of a fielder's choice that produced the game's first run.  Later, an infield single gave the Lions a 2-0 lead.
 
In the top of the fourth, the Mustangs broke through for their only run against Hill.  Robison drew a leadoff walk, advanced to second base on a groundout, moved to third on a Preston White single, and scored on Ryan Bricker's sacrifice bunt.
 
That's all they could do against Hill.  The junior righthander set the Mustangs down in order in the fifth and then closed out his six-inning stint by inducing Jaiden France to ground into an inning-ending double play.
 
Pulling Hill before he had a chance at a complete game almost cost the Lions as closer Alex Camacho's wildness gave the Mustangs a shot in their final at-bat.
 
He hit the first two batters he faced, White and Bricker.  However, he struck out Adam Rubio, got Moises Garcia on a ground out, and duplicated that against Ricky Sottile to snuff out the TMU rally.
 
The Mustangs get almost a week off to get over the sweep before welcoming Westmont to Lou Herwaldt Stadium next Friday for the first game of a three-game set.