The Cosumnes River Hawks capitalized on a number of errors by Lassen College and played good defense to shut out the Cougars in the first matchup of the two-game series on Feb. 22.
The Hawks (3-5) kept the Cougars (1-8) from scoring a single run, winning the game 5-0.
“We played pretty good defense,” said Hawks’ head coach Tony Bloomfield. “Didn’t hit like I thought we could, we should have squared more balls up. Hopefully with timing we’ll start hitting more.”
The first two innings went scoreless. The leadoff batter, Lassen’s sophomore infielder Dennis Morelli, started the first inning, hitting a single to left field but was thrown out by sophomore catcher Bryan Case while trying to steal second. The next two batters failed to make it on base.
The bottom of the first and top of the second were both three up, three down innings.
The bottom of the third inning is when problems started for the Cougars.
To start the inning, Hawks’ freshman infielder Michael Chavarria drew a walk. With the next batter laying down a sacrifice bunt, Chavarria made it to second. He was put on third base when Cougars’ sophomore pitcher Colby Duncan was called for a balk. A number of errors by the Cougars lead to Chavarria and sophomore infielder Luke McDonald scoring runs.
To end the inning, freshman utility player Kyle Von Ruden hit an RBI single over the second baseman’s head to bring in sophomore first baseman Garrett Heisinger, but one is all they would get as Case was thrown out at home.
Case, who threw out two Lassen players, said he felt he played alright in the game.
“We played pretty sloppy but it’s a win, so we’ll take it,” Case said. “There’s areas we need to clean up our game if we want to compete in conference.”
The bottom of the fifth inning saw a Hawks’ home run by Heisinger for the Hawks’ fourth run of the game.
“I saw a fastball the pitch before, and then I figured it was coming again since the first one was a ball, so I just got my hands inside and hit it,” Heisinger said. “I didn’t know it was going out at first, it was in there for a while.”
The final run for the Hawks came in the bottom of the eighth inning. Heisinger moved to first after being hit with a pitch by Cougars’ freshman relief pitcher Steve Lindsey. Heisinger scored on an error three batters later.
The Hawks dominated in the top of the ninth, with the first batter popping out. The second batter was walked, but the third at-bat resulted in a double play to end the game.
“Every win matters for us, but a win is a win right now,” Bloomfield said. “We’re 3-5 and we very easily could be 6-2 with any kind of offense, but we’re working, we’re young; a lot of inexperienced guys. Not many guys played on last year’s team, so I think we’ll get better as the year goes on. Hopefully we’ll be ready for league in a couple weeks.”
