Canale Settles Down for Cal Lutheran, 8-3

Pitcher Tom Canale overcame spurts of wildness and Cal Lutheran defeated host Southwestern, 8-3, in a first-round game of the NCAA Division III West Regional baseball playoffs Thursday at Georgetown, Texas.

The Kingsmen (29-12) will play top-seeded Chapman at 11 a.m. today in the double-elimination tournament, which concludes on Saturday.

Canale (9-5), a sophomore right-hander, walked five and hit four batters but limited Southwestern to five hits and struck out nine before giving way to Wayne Mahaffey with two out in the eighth inning.

Canale worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth.

Cal Lutheran, sparked by Jeremy Schlosser’s two-run home run, blew the game open with a six-run fifth. Brad Smith had a run-scoring double during the rally.

“Canale did a good job,” Cal Lutheran Coach Marty Slimak said. “That was a huge turnaround in the bottom of the fourth, when he left the bases loaded and then we scored six runs in the fifth.”

Cal Lutheran took a 1-0 lead on Eric Buben’s leadoff home run in the second.

In the fifth, Ryan Yoshiwara walked and scored on Schlosser’s home run. Raudel Flores reached base on a wild pitch after striking out, and stole second. Brian Malchow was walked intentionally and Smith followed with a double to make the score 4-0.

Buben hit a run-scoring single up the middle and Eric Medina followed with a sacrifice fly. Chris Tahan’s run-scoring single made the score 7-0.

Malchow, Smith and Buben each had two hits for Cal Lutheran.

Southwestern dropped to 41-8.

Cal Lutheran will meet Chapman today for the fifth time this season. But the Kingsmen might want to scrap their previous scouting reports, having lost three of four meetings against the Panthers.

Chapman 5, Sul Ross State 1--Jason Alvarado scattered nine hits for Chapman (30-8) in a first-round game. Bobby Calderson had three hits for the Panthers.