CARSON—Sunday's series finale at Cal State Dominguez Hills was far from a "must-win" statistically speaking for the Chico State baseball team. But was a game the Wildcats wanted badly.
 
A five-run first inning and Andrew Lopez's lockdown quickly pitching put much of their anxiety to rest. Lopez allowed only three hits in seven shutout innings and JT Navarro cracked three doubles in the Wildcats' 9-1 win that salvaged a series split after they had dropped the first two at Toro Field.
 
Lopez struck out six and walked only two in seven spectacular innings of work, improving to 4-1. The senior right-hander already led all California Collegiate Athletic Association pitchers with at least 40 innings of work with an ERA of 1.80. With his efforts Sunday, that number dropped to 1.60 over 50-plus innings. During the Wildcats' current stretch of 15 wins in their last 23 games, Lopez is 4-0 with a 1.43 ERA.
 
The Wildcats improved to 19-15 overall and remain in sixth place in the California Collegiate Athletic Association at 15-14 with Sunday's win. Six CCAA squads will advance to the conference's postseason tournament. They lead seventh-place Cal Poly Pomona—which comes to town for a four-game set this Thursday through Saturday—by a half-game, and trail fifth-place Sonoma State—in town the following weekend—by a half game. In fact, the Wildcats are only four games out of second place with 13 to play.
 
A loss Sunday would have left the Wildcats on the outside looking in for a CCAA Tournament spot. Those fears were quickly assuaged by a first-inning offensive onslaught.

 
Navarro doubled leading off the game and scored and on Kyle Pineda's double, sparking a five-run uprising. Alex DeVito singled home the game's second run and Griffin Hennessy provided perhaps the biggest knock of the day with a two-run single to left. Jorge Perez followed with an RBI double for a 5-0 lead.
 
Eddie Zavala plated another run with an infield hit in the second and the score remained 6-0 until the eighth.
 
Lopez retired the Toros in order in the second, fourth, fifth, and seventh and struck out five in his final three innings of work.
 
Navarro's third double of the day plated Perez in the eighth and Navarro scored on Pineda's base hit up the middle later inning the inning.
 
Navarro is the fifth Wildcat to hit three doubles in a game in the Dave Taylor head coaching era, which began in 2007, and the first to do it since Adam Arakawa on March 6, 2010.
 
Perez plated the game's final run with a ninth-inning RBI groundout.
 
Kenton Carruthers struck out the side in the ninth to close the win out.
 
Navarro finished the game 3-for-4 and reached base four times. Pineda, Hennessey, and Perez drove in two runs apiece.
 
The Wildcats' four-game home series against Cal Poly Pomona begins with a single game Thursday at 6 p.m. Following a doubleheader Friday at noon, the series concludes with a single game Saturday at 11 a.m. The games on Thursday and Saturday will be broadcast locally on AM-1290 and FM-102.9 KPAY. Links to streaming audio and live stats for all four games are available at www.chicowildcats.com.
 
Thursday's game will begin a stretch in which the Wildcats will play eight of nine at home before wrapping up the regular season with four straight on the road.