Penguins baseball split DH with Southwestern Oregon

Torin Bowden’s sacrifice fly in the 12th inning gave the Clark College baseball team a 3-2 victory over visiting Southwestern Oregon on Friday at Kindsfather Field.

Southwestern Oregon (9-33, 7-21 NWAC South) earned the doubleheader split by holding Clark to one hit in the second game for 3-0 victory and damaged the Penguins’ postseason aspirations.

Clark (21-20, 12-16) slipped into fifth place in the NWAC South region, one game behind Chemeketa and two behind idle Mt. Hood. The Penguins need to finish at least fourth to qualify for the postseason. They own the head-to-head tiebreaker against Chemeketa, but not Mt. Hood.

In the opener, solo home runs by Nathaniel Affonso in the fourth inning and Ben Wagner in the seventh had Clark ahead 2-1, but SWOCC scored the tying run in the eighth on a fielder’s choice.

In the 12th, Chaz Lopez opened with a single, and Cody Rice followed with his third hit of the game. Both moved up a base on a balk, and Bowden then lifted a fly to right field to bring in Lopez with the winning run.

Clark pitchers Nathaniel Brezner-Mendoza (3-2) and Derek Brown combined for 15 strikeouts while holding SWOCC to five hits.

In the second game, SWOCC scored all its runs in the fourth inning on three hits. Clark’s only hit was by Brad Grant in the third inning.

Clark hosts SWOCC in the regular-season doubleheader finale today at 1 p.m. at Kindsfather Field.