The Cosumnes River College Hawks lost its second straight game to the Sacramento City College Panthers 6-3 on March 8, dropping to a 5-8 overall record and a 0-2 conference record.

The baseball game was played at Sac City, even though CRC was the home team.

“Obviously the first inning is what cost us,” CRC head coach Tony Bloomfield said. “They got five runs on no hits. We came back and fought back and had our chances and just didn’t execute the hits when we had our chances to score more runs.”

The Hawks scored three runs on eight hits, while the Panthers scored six runs on four hits.

“It’s a good win, but we still haven’t played very well,” said Panthers assistant coach Deskaheh Bomberry, who took over when head coach Andy McKay left the game due to illness. “There’s a lot of areas to improve on. They handed us a few things, and we took advantage of them, but we need to play a lot better if we want to keep being successful.”

Panthers’ sophomore pitcher A.J. Quintero got the win, pitching seven innings and giving up three runs and seven hits, while Hawks’ freshman pitcher Alec Miramontes got the loss, giving up five runs on no hits through one inning.

“I know I didn’t have my best stuff today,” Quintero said. “When you don’t have your best stuff, all you got to do is compete and hopefully it turns out your way.”

The Panthers took advantage of five walks and two errors in the first inning and jumped to an early 5-0 lead. CRC freshman pitcher Blake Harrison relieved starting pitcher Alec Miramontes in the first inning.

Harrison gave up two hits and no runs in the next four innings.
With three hits and a couple of throwing errors by the Panthers in the fourth inning, the Hawks scored three runs to get back into the game.

Hawks’ sophomore left fielder Wil Gilliland, who stepped to the plate with two on and one out, bunted the ball towards the right side of the infield. Quintero grabbed the ball, sprinted to first, dove and tagged Gilliland. The first base umpire called Gilliland safe, but the home plate umpire overruled the play by calling him out.

“It relieved a lot of stress off me,” Quintero said. “It just got my mind back to focus on the next pitch.”

In the next at-bat, sophomore center fielder Colby Brenner grounded out to second base to end the inning.
Although the Hawks got runners on base in the seventh and eighth innings, they hit into two inning-ending double plays.

The Panthers added one more run in the eighth inning off a wild pitch by CRC sophomore pitcher Paul Hendley.

With two down and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, Hawks’ sophomore catcher Shawn Wheeler hit a foul ball that was caught by the first baseman to end the game.

“We had our chances,” Bloomfield said. “We just didn’t execute there at the end.”

Coach Bloomfield said his team needs to play “the full nine innings consistently”
and stop making costly errors.

“They got to clean up their act,” Bloomfield said. “This is the Big 8. You can’t play
that way in the Big 8. You’re going to lose in the Big 8. You got one bad inning, and you
get crooked numbers up in the scoreboard, you’re going to lose games.”