If it seems too good to be true, it probably happened at Nettleton Stadium Sunday. On Senior Day, in the final home game of the greatest home season in the history of the storied Chico State baseball program, senior Cody Snider's soaring fly ball landed just shy of the warning track and scored senior Andrew Carrillo (who led off the inning with a pinch-hit triple) for an 8–7 walk-off win over Cal State East Bay. All 16 seniors–including Andru Cardenas, who missed the second half of the campaign after being diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome–converged between first and second base to celebrate by dousing one another with water bottles.
Moments later, they walked off the field after playing the final home game of their collegiate careers refreshed by the waters of victory.
It was Chico State's 25
th win in 26 home games this season. The fourth-ranked Wildcats, No. 1 in the West Region, improved to 38-7 overall and 31-3 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) in front of a season-best crowd of 610. Their best home record prior came in 2002, when they went 26-4.
Cardenas started the first 26 games of the season for Chico State, batting .313, swiping 10 bases, and completing all 115 of his defensive opportunities flawlessly. But he was rushed to the hospital on March 24 and later airlifted back home to the Los Angeles area after falling ill.
His recovery has been steady, as was hoped, and slow, as was expected. But he was all smiles this weekend, relishing another opportunity to join his teammates in the dugout and participate in the banter and shenanigans.
"Having Andru in the dugout was the highlight of this week for us," said Head Coach Dave Taylor following Sunday's win.
Andru Cardenas with his mother Rosie and father Jaime.
It was a weekend full of highlights. The Wildcats clinched their second straight CCAA title on Friday, becoming the first team in the program's history to win consecutive CCAA titles. They earned Taylor his 400
th victory as the Chico State skipper and his 750
th as a Chico State coach Saturday (He was the team's pitching coach from 1997-2004 before getting the head job in 2007), while also cementing the best home-field winning percentage in the history of the program.
They placed the cherry on top of a terrific home season on Sunday.
It was Carrillo who took over the starting role at second base after Cardenas got sick. They share skill sets and initials, and if they shared the same number, it would be hard for fans in the grandstand tell them apart. So when Carrillo cracked a 2-2 pitch off the base of the wall in left-center field and sped around the bases, eventually sliding into third just ahead of the tag on a bang-bang play, it could have just as easily been Cardenas setting the stage for victory.
The Pioneers intentionally loaded the bases and brought in an outfielder to be a fifth infielder in hopes of getting out of the jam. But Snider came through for the second time in three innings. He tied the game in the eighth with a single to left-center. And in the 10
th, he won it with a soaring fly ball to left.
Carrillo began Sunday's game on the bench, as Taylor filled the bottom four spots of the batting order with senior reserves. It was no surprise to those who follow the Wildcats closely that the "reserves" performed remarkably.
Dallas Porter got the start for Carrillo at second base and went 3-for-4 with two doubles, two RBI, and scored a run. Casey Bennett, who started 44 games at shortstop for the Wildcats last season, started there again on Sunday and reached base in all three of his plate appearances, drawing a pair of walks and getting hit by a pitch. The pair also played magnificent defense in another error-free game for the nation's top defensive team. Jerrett Maas was the designated hitter and went 1-for-2 with a walk and scored two runs. And catcher Marcos Valencia brought home the first two runs of the game with a one-hop bullet that whizzed past the shortstop, before plating Porter with a sixth-inning single and then stealing the first base of his career.
Wildcats starter Steven Baker allowed just one
run on four hits in seven innings of work.
Senior Nicholas Padilla and Brian Pozos, also got into the act. Padilla pinch hit with two down in the eighth and hit a ball hard toward third, eventually reaching on an error when the hurried throw was in the dirt. Pozos pinch ran and blazed all the way around to score on Porter's double down the left field line.
Another senior, Steven Baker, came up big on the mound. Making his fifth start of the season, Baker allowed just one run on four hits in seven innings. He had to settle for a no-decision when the Pioneers rallied for six runs in the eighth.
The Wildcats trailed 7–6, but were not about to allow their home season, and Senior Day, to end in disappointment. Prior to Sunday, they had trailed during the eighth inning eight times. They had rallied to win four of those games. And nine of the last 12 times the Wildcats had allowed an opponent to score in the top-half of an inning, they had answered by scoring in the bottom half.
The trends continued. Sonny Cortez doubled over the right-fielder's head with one out in the eighth, and then Snider singled him home for his 115
th career run–tied for the seventh most in school history and third most among two-year players.
Reliever Jae Wagner, who got the final out in the top of the eighth, worked around a two-out single in the ninth and a leadoff single in the 10
th to earn his first win as a Wildcat and lower his ERA to 0.54 in 16 appearances.
The Wildcats will wrap up the regular season with a four-game series at Cal State Monterey Bay next Thursday-through-Saturday. They will then be the top seed in the CCAA Tournament in Stockton May 10-13.
GAME NOTES – Josh Falco's line single to left in the second inning stretched his hitting streak to 15 games, which is the ninth longest streak in the Dave Taylor era and seven shy of the school record…The Wildcats are now 4-1 when Baker starts this season and 10-2 in his 12 career starts…This was Chico State's first extra-inning game of the season…They are 28-16 when playing extra innings in the Dave Taylor era…The Wildcats are now 25-1 when drawing more walks than their opponent.
The 2017 Chico State baseball team's 16-man senior class. (All photos by Emily Bentz Photography)
The Wildcats' lone fourth-year senior, Clayton Gelfand, surrounded by his family.
Dallas Porter went 3-for-4 with two doubles and two RBI Sunday.
