The University of La Verne baseball team concluded Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic (SCIAC) regular season play against Cal Lutheran, suffering a pair of losses by scores of 4-2 and 7-1 at the hands of the Kingsmen who clinched the No. 1 seed heading in to SCIAC pool play.

An early Cal Lutheran lead would force La Verne to play catch up in the opener of the twinbill as the Kingsmen held a 3-0 lead into the sixth inning.  La Verne would cut the Cal Lutheran lead to one with two runs on three hits.  George Hanna would lead the inning off with a single up the middle and advance to third on a Michael Stewart single through the left side.  Hanna and Stewart would then score on a Cody Hazel single to right field to bring the Leopards within one at 3-2.

La Verne would register 11 hits in but would fail to bring in any additional runners while allowing Cal Lutheran to add an additional run in a 4-2 final.

Leopard starter Sean Beckman went 6.2 innings allowing ten hits and four earned.  Beckman also struck out four.  Offensively, Michael Reyes paced La Verne with his 3-5 day at the plate with both Stewart and Hazel finishing 2-4.

CLU's Nick Boggan led the Kingsmen offense with a 4-4 effort and a run batted in.

The Leopard bats would cool in the second game, producing just one run in the 7-1 defeat.  La Verne's lone run would come courtesy of Nicholas Bergara who put the Leopards on the board with his first homer of the year in the top of the ninth with an inside-the-park round tripper.  Bergara was the only Leopard to record a multi-hit game with his 2-3 performance.  Pedro Espinoza, Josh Surdo, and Stewart all had one hit.

The Kingsmen posted four runs in the bottom of the fifth and added a run in the sixth for a 5-0 lead.  CLU tacked on a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth before Bergara's homer in the ninth nullified a shutout bid from Kingsmen starter Scott Peters, who remained unbeaten on the year to move to 7-0.

La Verne (19-15, 13-11 SCIAC) holds the No. 6 seed heading into conference pool play next week.  The Leopards are slated to play two home games next Saturday (April 27), first against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps followed Cal Lutheran at 3:00 pm.  La Verne would then travel to Claremont to face Pomona-Pitzer on  April 28 and conclude pool play at Whittier on April 30.