WNC sweeps for 12th straight win

Western Nevada College continued its winning ways " barely.

The league-leading Wildcats stretched their win streak to 12 straight and now lead the Scenic West by two games with 16 left after sweeping College of Eastern Utah 6-5 and 6-5 in a doubleheader Sunday afternoon.

First place is up for grabs this weekend when second-place Southern Nevada faces WNC in doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday.

In the opener, Eastern Utah built a 5-1 lead entering the bottom of the third against WNC starter David Carroll, but WNC kept chipping away and eventually won the game on Travis Feiner's walk-off single with one out in the seventh.

The key to the first-game win was reliever Kramer Champlin, who pitched four innings of one-hit ball. He fanned five and didn't walk a batter.

"I was trying to hit my spots," Champlin said. "Good things come from hitting your spots. Every game I come into I want to finish."

"He (Champlin) has been lights out the last five weeks," head coach D.J. Whittemore said. "He did a really good job."

The Wildcats sliced the deficit to 5-4 with a three-run third, two of the scores coming off wild pitches and the third on Feiner's double.

Western tied the game at 5 in the fifth when Mike Stiles singled, his second of three hits, and scored on Lance Ray's triple to left-center field. Eastern Utah escaped without any more damage.

In the seventh, Stiles hit an infield single and moved to second on Jerome Pena's sacrifice bunt. Ray and Brian Barnett walked to load the bases. Feiner followed with his second hit of the game to end it.

"With two strikes, I didn't want to hit a groundball and I wanted to stay out of a double play. He came in with a high curveball.

"(Earlier) we were just trying to stay calm and get a lot of hits."

In the second game, Eastern Utah led 4-0 in the top of the second.

Barnett started the comeback with a two-run double and Andrew Garcia had a run-scoring single. Feiner also drove in a run in the comeback.

The go-ahead run came in the fifth when Mike Long's pinch-hit single scored Garcia, who had singled, stole second and went to third on a throwing error by the catcher.

Logan Odom picked up the win in relief and Jeremy Gendlek survived a first-and-second situation in the seventh to nail down the save.