Baseball

Chapman 7, Cal Lutheran 4--The Kingsmen’s season, which began to spiral out of control two weeks ago, came to a sloppy end when they made five errors and squandered a solid pitching effort by freshman Jason Hirsh in an elimination game of the NCAA Division III West Regionals at Hart Park in Orange.

Cal Lutheran (27-15), playing in its 10th consecutive postseason tournament, finished the season with an eight-game losing streak, its longest since 1978.

The Kingsmen are 0-8-1 against Chapman (35-8) in the last three seasons and they failed to win a regional game for the first time since 1997. They lost, 7-6, to Cal State Hayward in the regional opener Thursday.

Chapman has won six games in a row and 28 of 31.

All of Chapman’s runs were unearned. The Panthers used two errors to score three runs in the top of the fourth inning, added another run in the fifth thanks to a throwing error and completed their scoring with three runs in the eighth after two fielding errors.

“You can’t give Chapman one or two runs like we did, let alone seven,” Cal Lutheran Coach Marty Slimak said. “Chapman is just too good of a team to do that.”

Hirsh (7-3) brought a 2.64 earned-run average into Friday’s game. He worked 7 2/3 innings, scattered six hits and walked only two.

“At the beginning of the year, my role was undefined,” Hirsh said. “But I got my shot to prove myself. Even what I did today--that shocked me.”

His performance was matched by Mike Carey, a right-hander who struck out nine in 8 1/3 innings.

Carey (9-1), who has not dropped a decision since a 3-0 loss to Whittier on March 10, tired in the seventh. He left the game in the ninth with one out and two runners on after Cal Lutheran had scored two runs.

Reliever Josh Dickey, who shut down a McMurry rally in the ninth inning of Chapman’s 7-5 victory in Thursday’s opener, entered and got Aaron Dixon to pop out.

Tom Galante blooped a single to loaded the bases, but Dickey picked up his second save in as many days when he got pinch-hitter Andy Luttrell to ground into a force play to end the threat.