The La Verne baseball team completed its three-games series with Whittier College with the Leopards earning the victory after defeating the Poets 8-4 on Sunday afternoon in Whittier.

La Verne grabbed an early lead in the top of the first inning, scoring a run off of a double by Cody Hazel. The Leopards increased their lead to 3-0 after plating two more runs in the third and fourth inning off of an RBI double by Jason Moralez and a single by Mason Stoltenberg.

Whittier got on the board in the bottom of the sixth inning when Austin Straus tripled through the left side scoring the Poets' first run.

Moralez earned his second RBI of the game when he singled in the seventh, scoring Stoltenberg who had reached on a lead off walk. George Hanna hit a two RBI single in the top of eighth inning giving the Leopards a 6-1 lead.

The Poets countered, scoring three runs off of four hits at the bottom of the inning. Back-to-back singles by Alex Mitchell and Stephen Zavala put runners on first and second. Straus doubled to score the first run. A ground out by Cory Goodchild would score the second, and an RBI single by Corey Jensen scored the final run for the Poets cutting their deficit down to two runs.

The Leos capitalized on a Poet error to score two insurance runs in the ninth inning, resulting in the 8-4 La Verne victory.

Anthony Cerafice picked up his fourth win of the season after pitching 7.1 innings. The loss went to Curtis Martin.

La Verne's victory places them in a tie with Cal Lutheran for first place in SCIAC with a league mark of 14-4 and an overall record of 19-10.

The Leopards continue SCIAC action Friday as they head to Thousand Oaks to take on Cal Lutheran in a battle of first place teams.   First pitch is scheduled for 3:00 pm.