NANAIMO, BC.- The Pippins picked up their 9^th win of the second half in a dominant 8-0 win over Nanaimo.

The lefty tallied his 3^rd win of the year in grand fashion, as the Pippins picked up their 2^nd shutout of the season.

Grothues was coming off a tough outing against Kamloops, in which he didn’t record an out allowing 2 runs on 3 walks. The incoming freshman at UCLA bounced back with his best start of the campaign.

The first 3 innings Grothues only faced 9 batters, allowing 1 to reach on a walk but Jake Borst caught him stealing.

This allowed the Pippins to strike first in the 3^rd, when a 2-out blast from Seth Ryberg sailed over the right field fence to make it 1-0.

Grothues and Nanaimo starter Garrett Goodall would match each other stride-for-stride after that. A scoreless 5^th inning on both sides and a 1-2-3 top of the 6^th set up an action-packed bottom half.

Grothues got into his first trouble all game when a 1-out single became the first hit against the lefty 5.1 innings in.

He struck out the next batter but a wild pitch escaped Jake Borst and allowed him to reach. A 2-out hit-by-pitch loaded the bases and the Night Owls were primed to strike.

He would face cleanup hitter Landon Frei out of the University of Utah with the bases loaded and leading 1-0. After a great at-bat, another nasty curveball from Grothues became his 4^th strikeout of the inning, 8^th of the game, and left the bases juiced.

The lefty was fired up coming off the mound, which prompted Frei to yell from the batters box, and after a few seconds of chirps, Frei was ejected from the game.

Grothues’ day would end with 6 scoreless innings allowing 1-hit and striking out 8. The Pippins would use that momentum of the 6^th to tally 6 runs in the 7^th inning.

With 2-outs Seth Ryberg would strike again with a 2-RBI single, his 3^rd hit of the game. 2 more singles would follow including an RBI from Jackson Reed, setting up Jaxon Sorenson with a runner on.

On the first pitch following a long mound visit, Sorenson hit an absolute bomb 102 mph off the bat and a no-doubter for his 3^rd WCL and his 4^th overall home run of the campaign.

Peysen Sweeney replaced the Pippins starter in the 7^th and finished with 3 scoreless and hitless innings to put game one on ice against the Night Owls.

Another Jackson Reed RBI single in the 9^th made in 8-0 and that would be the last of the scoring as Yakima Valley took the victory, the 8^th of their last 9.

With Portland ending a 10-game win streak, the Pippins move to 2 games back of the South Division second half leaders.

They look to win their 4^th straight series in the second game in Nanaimo Tuesday at 6:35. Audio stream can be found at mixlr.com/pippinsbaseball.