Jason Karkenny

Santa Clarita, Calif. — Five days after one weekend and season sweep, The Master’s College did it again Thursday afternoon on Reese Field.  Behind the stingy pitching of Ty Galloway and Conner Menez, the Mustangs took two from Arizona Christian, leveling the Firestorm 11-0 in the opener and edging them 3-1 in the nightcap.

The victories improved the Mustangs to 34-7 overall and 27-6 in the GSAC.  With second-place Westmont sweeping Biola, the club stayed 1 1/2 games ahead of the Warriors in the race for the regular-season crown.

In atypical fashion, it took awhile for the offense to get untracked, but when it did it left little doubt about the outcome.  After being blanked through the first three frames, the Mustangs erupted in the fourth off Firestorm starter Dylan Waugh and reliever JR Harrington.

Sending 11 batters to the plate, the Mustangs scored seven times on as many hits.  It started with back-to-back doubles from Steve Karkenny (Chatsworth, CA) and Collin Nyenhuis (Vista, CA), and continued with an rbi single off the bat of David Sheaffer (Mt. Airy, NC) for a 2-0 lead.

Sam Robison (San Juan Capistrano, CA) made it 3-0 with a single up the middle that scored Bryce Clancy (Phoenix, AZ) and Caleb Halverson (Temple City, CA) singled in Josh Brown (Valencia, CA), increasing the lead to four runs.  Moments later, Jon Popadics (Boise, ID) walked with the bases loaded, bringing home Robison and then Karkenny capped the frame with a rare, two-run sacrifice fly.

Meanwhile, Galloway (Modesto, CA) was mowing down the Firestorm.  After struggling through the first inning before leaving the bases loaded, the rangy righthander surrendered just two hits over the next five frames and completed his six-inning stint in style, striking out the final batter he faced in a 1-2-3 finish.  He wound up with three strikeouts and won his team-high ninth game (9-2) of the year.

Hunter Totemeier (Santa Ynez, CA) and Justyn Lee (Woodland Hills, CA) combined for the final three shutout frames, notching the staff’s fourth blanking of the campaign.

The offense kept up its momentum in the fifth inning when with two outs Robison doubled in pinch-runner Tyler Krahn (Abbotsford, BC, Canada) and then scored on Clancy’s two-out single for a 9-0 lead.

They capped another offensive display in the eighth, scoring twice on Nyenhuis’ two-run double, plating Josh Robison (San Juan Capistrano, CA) and Halverson.

Nyenhuis, batting .378 this year, went 2-4 and had three rbi, giving him a club-high 46.  Sheaffer, Clancy, and Sam Robison rapped out two hits apiece, all part of a 15-hit attack.

Runs were harder to come by in the nightcap but the Mustangs got off on the right foot, bolting to a 2-0 lead in their initial at-bat.  With one out, Karkenny was plunked by a pitch and promptly stole second base.  He advanced to third on a groundout and then scored on a Nick Covello (Skillman, NJ) triple and when the Firestorm shortstop made an error, Covello kept on going to score.

Not surpisingly, that was all the support Mustang starter Conner Menez (6-0) needed.  Making his seventh start of the year, the southpaw retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced.  He gave up a run in the fourth when the Firestorm rapped out two singles and got a sacrifice fly to slice the deficit in half but after that he kept ACU off the scoreboard and struck out four of the last six batters, whiffing a career-high nine on the way to his third complete game in his past four outings.

After Menez gave up the fourth-inning run, his teammates got that right back in the bottom of the frame and could have had even more.  Nyenhuis led off with single to right field and sprinted to third on a Sheaffer single.  Wasting no time, Brown singled in Nyenhuis to reclaim a two-run edge for his team and the Mustangs eventually loaded the bases before failing to score again.

Playing a mid-week series allows the Mustangs to have the weekend off as they point toward April 10 when they host William Jessup in the first of three games that marks their final home GSAC series of 2015.