St. Mary’s Takes Series From Loyola

Henley Regisford salvaged a split for the Loyola Marymount baseball team Saturday, hitting a grand slam in the ninth inning to give the Lions an 8-6 victory in the second game of a doubleheader against St. Mary’s at Moraga.

The Gaels won the first game, 6-1, and took two of three games in the series to move past the Lions into second place in the West Coast Conference.

The Gaels won Friday’s series opener, 9-8, in 11 innings.

The Lions are 22-15 overall and 12-8 in WCC play and St. Mary’s is 18-14 and 13-8. Both teams lost ground to league leader Pepperdine, which swept a series from San Diego to improve to 15-3 in the WCC.

St. Mary’s batted around in each of the first two innings of Saturday’s opener to knock out Chris Spears (6-5).

The Lions took a 2-0 lead in the second game on Gerardo Perez’s seventh home run. But St. Mary’s scored four runs off Jon Willard in the sixth. The Lions tied the score, 4-4, with a two-run seventh before St. Mary’s took a 6-4 lead with a run in the seventh and eighth innings.

With one out in the ninth, the Lions loaded the bases and Regisford hit a 2-and-1 pitch over the scoreboard in right field, his third homer of the season. Joe Caruso (4-2), who struck out the side in the ninth, got the victory.

The Lions play at Cal State Long Beach Tuesday, then resume WCC play Friday, playing host to San Francisco in a three-game series.