FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
That happened to junior Tyler Dean this weekend. Dean, the starting centerfielder for Chapman University’s No. 4-ranked NCAA Division III baseball team, needed just four at-bats to accomplish the feat on Friday at Hart Park in Orange, Calif. Dean took care of the most difficult ‘leg’ first by tripling down the right field line in the 1st inning of Chapman’s 7-2 win over visiting Pomona-Pitzer Colleges. He doubled in the 3rd, then homered in the 4th before singling to leadoff the 6th inning to complete the first cycle in six years at Chapman. He wasn’t done there. The Panthers went to Pomona on Saturday to beat up on the Sagehens 17-4. Dean was actually hit by the first pitch he saw, but the message didn’t get through. He doubled in the 3rd, grounded out in the 4th and tripled in the 6th. It took Chapman batting around in the 6th for Dean to come up again in the 7th when he singled. Eight more batters came to the plate in the 7th, allowing Dean to bat again in the 8th, needing a home run to accomplish a feat as rare as Johnny Vandermeer’s back-to-back no-hitters. Dean hammered a 1-0 offering from Sagehens reliever Tom Church over the left field fence completing his second cycle in as many days. Dean finished the two-game series 8-for-10 with seven runs, six RBI and 20 total bases.
Game stats available online: |
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CLAREMONT, Calif. – We all know how rare of a feat – a statistical oddity – it is for a player to hit for the cycle. Rarer than a no-hitter, they say. How rare is it then when a player hits for the cycle in back-to-back games, on back-to-back days, versus the same team, but in different ballparks?