LA VERNE — Beginning the most important four-game stretch of the season, the University of La Verne baseball team rose to the occasion and swept the first two games of the SCIAC round robin play at Ben Hines Field on Saturday.

With the two wins and losses by Occidental and Redlands, La Verne takes sole possession of fourth place in the SCIAC standings and now control their own destiny with two games to go in the season. The Leopards travel to Thousand Oaks tomorrow to face Cal Lutheran and to Pasadena on Tuesday to take on Caltech.

Game 1: La Verne 6, Pomona-Pitzer 3

George Holland hit a go-ahead double with two outs in the seventh inning and La Verne held on to beat Pomona-Pitzer, 6-3, in Game 1.

With La Verne trailing 3-2, Ben White and Pedro Espinoza drew consecutive walks with two outs to chase Pomona-Pitzer starter Jake Bruml and bring up Holland. Holland worked the count full, then drove one over the center fielder's head to plate both runners to give the Leopards a 4-3 lead. Holland came around to score on the next at bat when right fielder Kenny Rabin dropped a fly ball hit by Josh Surdo.

Holland was 2-for-4 on the game with two RBI and a run scored.

The Leopards tacked on an insurance run in the eighth on Joe Winterburn's RBI single.

Pomona-Pitzer took its first lead of the game in the sixth inning when E.J. Lopez doubled to lead off and advanced to third on a single by Mark Okuma. Okuma got picked off at first, but Travis Bowers followed with a deep fly out to center to score Lopez.

La Verne starter Mark Jebbia walked seven, but gave up only five hits and struck out five in 8.1 innings to earn the win on the mound.

Jebbia got off to a shaky start, walking the first two batters of the game, but struck out the ever-dangerous Simon Rosenbaum and limited the damage to just one run on a sacrifice fly by Bruml in the first inning.

The Leopards responded immediately in the bottom of the first. Nolan Henley led off with a walk himself and Joe Winterburn drove him in with a double to deep left to tie it at 1-1.

The teams traded runs again in the third and the fourth. In the bottom of the third, Tyler Watkins reached on a dropped swinging third strike, advanced on a bunt by George Hanna and came around to score when Ben White shot one to the opposite field. E.J. Lopez then led off the top of the fourth with a double and later scored on a sacrifice fly by Kevin Brice.

Brett Early got the final two outs to earn the save for La Verne.

Winterburn was 2-for-5 with one RBI and Nolan Henley scored two runs.

Game 2: La Verne 12, Whittier 2 (8 innings)

Joe Winterburn blasted two home runs and La Verne used a big fourth inning—aided by three Whittier fielding errors in the inning—to beat the Poets, 12-2, in Game 2.

With La Verne already having scored four runs in the fourth, Winterburn capped it off with a two-run home run to deep left center to give the Leopards an 8-1 cushion. Earlier in the inning, La Verne scored four runs on a single, an error and two sacrifice flies.

Winterburn then sent one over the right field fence in the seventh for his second home run of the game.

Whittier committed a total of seven errors in the game and 10 of La Verne's 12 runs were unearned.

La Verne got off to a fast start. After Nolan Henley drew a walk to lead off the game, Tyler Watkins laid down a perfect bunt down the first base line to sacrifice him over. But Whittier pitcher Matt Zolkiewicz-Lawrence dithered waiting for the ball to roll into the foul territory and rushed the throw into the right field, allowing Henley to score and Watkins to advance all the way to third. Ben White singled two batters later to score Watkins and give La Verne a 2-0 lead.

Whittier got two runs back in the second and the sixth, but couldn't get anything else going.

Kevin Knight was dominant in an eight-inning complete-game effort. The senior struck out a season-high 11 batters and gave just two runs on four hits to earn the win on the mound.

La Verne takes on Cal Lutheran tomorrow at 11 a.m.