PORTLAND, Oreg. - The Gaels jumped out to their first lead of the series with a 3-run bomb from Ryan Pierce for his 13th of the season, but the lead would be short lived as Portland rebounded with six unanswered including a four run second inning, en route to the 7-5 victory. With the series sweep the Pilots secured the second seed in the WCC tournament and the first round bye along with league champs San Diego. Saint Mary's will enter the postseason tournament as the three seed and face off against Pepperdine who snuck in as the six seed on the final day of the regular season. Additional tournament links, schedule, tickets and more can be found at smcgaels.com. 

Dalton Mashore and Coleman Schmidt would single in the first to set the stage for Ryan Pierce who would send his 13th homer of the season out of the park, giving the Gaels a 3-0 lead. Junior left hander Dylan Delvecchio would make his 8th start of the season but give up a home run in the first and then Connor Linchey would surrender a three run homer in the bottom of the second to push the Pilots lead to 6-3.

Linchey would bounce back though and pitch a scoreless 1-2-3 third inning allowing Nathan Chong to launch his second homer of the series and swing the momentum back to the Gaels. Chong connected on his 12th of the season and has recorded hits in five of his last six games. Freshman Justin Santiago would take over to start the fourth and retire the Pilots in order to keep it a two run game heading into the fifth. 

Portland would record another two hits in the bottom of the fifth inning and cash in on a two out RBI single to extend their lead to 7-4. Down three and looking to shake things up, head coach Eric Valenzuela would go to the bench and call upon Cody Kashimoto with two outs in the sixth inning. Kashimoto would single to right field on the first pitch he saw and then after stealing second, Connor "Bear" Harrison would come up with the clutch two out single to score Kashimoto and make it just a two run game. 

Anchoring the final three innings on the mound for Saint Mary's was sophomore John Damozonio. He made just his tenth appearance of the season and one of his best ones with three scoreless innings of work allowing just one hit. The Gales were able to threaten with runners on in each of the last three innings but Portland got six strikeouts including three in the ninth to hang on for the 7-5 win and series sweep. Saint Mary's had seven different players record all seven hits on the day and Ryan Pierce led the way with three RBI's with his 13th homer of the season. 

LOOKING AHEAD

The Gaels will look to regroup as their season continues with their second straight WCC tournament appearance next week in Las Vegas. They finish the regular season with an overall record of 33-20 and place third in conference play at 16-8. They will take on sixth seed Pepperdine on Wednesday, May 22nd at 3:00 PM. 

Tournament links can be found HERE and tickets can be bought at smcgaels.com. Be sure to follow your Gaels on Facebook, Instagram, and X/Twitter to get all the latest Saint Mary's athletics updates and information.

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