CLAREMONT, Calif. – The Ithaca College baseball team made its long-awaited 2019 season-opener on Saturday as the Bombers made their annual Spring Break trip to California and took on Pomona-Pitzer at Alumni Field. At the end of the day, Ithaca wound up on the wrong end of a 1-0 decision, which improved Pomona-Pitzer's record to 8-2 on the year.

Senior Emmett Dunn turned in an excellent performance on the mound as he tossed seven innings of four-hit ball with two strikeouts and one earned run in a losing effort. Dunn induced 11 groundouts in the game before giving way to fellow senior Matt Eiel, who fanned one batter in a scoreless inning of relief.

The Sagehens pushed the game-winning run across the plate in the bottom of the second inning on a single up the middle, which followed a double to the right-center gap.

IC left nine runners on base and stranded the bases loaded twice – in the third and eighth innings.

In the third, senior Garrett Snyder reached on a two-out walk and then moved up on an error off the bat of senior Webb Little. After a wild pitch moved the runners up, senior Andrew Bailey drew a walk to load the bases, but the inning ended on a strikeout.

In the eighth inning, W. Little and Bailey notched back-to-back singles with one out. After a groundout, which moved the runners to second and third, junior Buzz Shirley drew a pinch-hit walk. In the next at bat, sophomore Garrett Callaghan laced a groundball down the first base line, but it was snagged for the unassisted putout to erase the threat.

Along with base hits from W. Little and Bailey, senior Matt Carey and sophomore Jack Lynch also recorded singles in the loss.

IC will look for its first win tomorrow afternoon against No. 18 California Lutheran at 1 p.m. (PST).