Cosumnes River College baseball lost to the American River College Beavers in their regular season finale 3-9 on April 25, but The Hawks came out winning the three game series against ARC 2-1, giving them three series wins in a row before heading into the playoffs.
“We just came out a little lackluster,” said assistant coach Harvey Hargrove. “I think going out and winning two games pretty handily as we did might have come out for game three thinking we were just gonna do the same thing.”
Freshman right handed pitcher Josh Painter took the bump for the Hawks. ARC jumped on him early, scoring a run off an RBI single in the first.
The CRC bats would get off to a slow start going down 1-2-3 in the first inning. Freshman first baseman Angelo Luna would get a leadoff knock in the bottom of the second for the first Hawks hit, but wouldn’t lead to any runs.
Painter tossed a clean second inning, but would get cracked for two runs off three hits in the third, and another in the fourth. CRC went hitless until the bottom of the fifth.
The Hawks allowed a leadoff single in the top of the fifth, but following a double play and a popout, would get out of the inning unscathed. Freshman third baseman Elijah White would break the hitless streak, hitting a two-out-single in the bottom of the fifth. CRC ended up stranding bases loaded.
“We put some balls in play, but other than that, we can’t do nothing about it,” said freshman outfielder Daniel Melendez.
The sixth inning would be where the wheels came off the wagon for the Hawks. Painter allowed a leadoff off single, but an error from White on a ground ball allowed a runner to score. There were five runs scored in the inning- all unearned.
Painter didn’t make it through the inning, ending his day with 5.2 innings pitched, 11 hits allowed, four earned runs, and four strikeouts. He was subbed out for sophomore left handed pitcher Jace Villanueva.
The Hawks scored their first runs in the bottom of the sixth off a two run homer from sophomore designated hitter Ben Pernetti.
Sophomore left-handed pitcher Noah Rhea-Meaux finished the last three innings for the Hawks. He allowed two walks, but got both players out with successful pick-off moves.
Rhea-Meaux allowed one more hit the rest of the way, pitching three scoreless innings.
The Hawks scored one more run in the bottom of the eighth, but it was too little too late.
“We’ve been talking about for the last three series – the next game is opening day,” said freshman left fielder Angelo Nunez. “ We just gotta take it one game at a time and use it as motivation.”
The series brought the Hawks to a regular season record of 22-16 while being 11-13 in league play.
“We learn from failure. Everything we did incorrectly, we try to go out there and do correctly next time.” said White.