PORTLAND, Ore. --- Portland's Chad Stevens homered and starter Eli Morse worked eight solid innings on the hill, but in the end the Loyola Marymount Lions capitalized with a couple of unearned runs to edge the Pilots 2-1 in a West Coast Conference baseball game played on Friday night at Joe Etzel Field. Stevens, a sophomore shortstop, also made a handful of spectacular plays in the field for the Pilots.
 
In the bottom of the opening inning, Stevens launched the first pitch he saw deep over the left field fence to give the early advantage to the Pilots (16-10, 1-6 WCC). It's the fourth home run of the season for Stevens.
 
The lead would stand for the next six innings as Morse, a sophomore right-hander, tossed a gem. He struck out eight, didn't walk a batter, and scattered eight hits. The Lions only got more than one runner on base twice with Morse pitching.
 
Both LMU (16-9, 6-1 WCC) runs came in the top of the seventh inning, and both runs were unearned due to a Portland error. With the Pilots still leading 1-0 and no outs in that seventh inning, Nick Sogard sent a double into the left center gap, scoring Kenny Oyama all the way from first base to level the score. A few batters later, Sogard trotted home with the go-ahead run on a ground out by Brandon Shearer.
 
That was all the run support LMU would need as starter Codie Paiva and relievers C.J. Fernandezees and Matt Voelker combined to hold the Pilots to just four hits. Paiva (3-2) earns the win after going 6.2 innings, and Voelker tossed a perfect ninth to collect his sixth save of the year.
 
The Pilots did get runners on second and third in the home half of the seventh, but Fernandezees escaped by inducing a ground out to short.
 
Portland junior reliever Christian Peters came into pitch the top of the ninth, and he K'd two of the three batters he faced.
 
The Pilots and Lions next play the second game of the three-game series Saturday night at 6 p.m.