SPOKANE, Wash. - George Fox built an early lead then held of a furious Whitworth rally to escape with a 5-4 win and capture the Northwest Conference baseball series at Merkel Field on Sunday afternoon.

Complete box score.

Jones hit his first home run of the season

Leading by a run in the bottom of the ninth, Bruin pitcher Josh Burch tagged out Whitworth's Dan Ramsey at the plate as Ramsey attempted to score from third on what would've been a wild pitch. But Catcher Ryan Fobert got to the ball and threw to Burch in time. Then Fobert picked off Mitch Ramsey at first base for the final out of the game.

Whitworth (6-12, 4-5) rallied from a 5-0 deficit with two runs each in the seventh and eighth innings. J.J. Jones started things off with his first home run of the season with one out in the seventh. Then two hits and an out later, Jon Whiteside scored after an error at short stop. Then in the eighth Jones singled home a run with one out, and Scott Ward singled home Mitch Ramsey to pull the Bucs within one.

George Fox (15-1, 8-1) scored three runs in the top of the first to grab the early lead. All of the runs came home on Dan Wentzell's fifth home run of the season and his second of the series. Bryan Donohue's RBI double brought home another run in the second.

The next four innings were scoreless, then the Bruins made the margin 5-0 in the top of the seventh on Daniel Downs' RBI single.

Whitworth was able to stay in the game thanks to the solid efforts of the Pirate bullpen in relief of starter Jason Weatherman. Stephan Baronowski, James Nelson and Jordan Farkas combined for seven innings of relief and allowed only one run.

Preston Langliers went 6.2 innings for George Fox to pick up his fourth win of the year. Weatherman fell to 0-3 this season for the Pirates.

Jones finished the game 3 for 4 for Whitworth with his two RBIs. Ward also had a pair of hits. Donohue, Downs, Burch, Pat Bailey and Drew Johnson all had a couple of hits for GFU. Wentzell led the Bruins with his three RBIs.

Coming up: Whitworth will travel to Salem, Oregon next weekend to face Willamette University in a three game Northwest Conference series. The Bearcats are 8-10 overall and 2-6 in the NWC after taking two of three games at Whitman this season. Whitworth won two of three games at Willamette last season.