CHICO – Perhaps the only thing more shocking than the way the Chico State baseball team’s offense dismantled Central Washington’s pitching staff this weekend was the discovery that the 70 runs on 74 hits Chico State put up, culminating in Sunday’s 14-9, 20-1 doubleheader sweep, were only the second most ever recorded by a Chico State team over the course of a four-game series. It’s safe to say that Central Washington isn’t up for sticking around and giving the Wildcats another crack at the record.
Chico State scored in nine of their last 10 at-bats Sunday to turn aside an upset bid in the first game and then cap the weekend with a flurry in game two. They would have needed to score three more runs to match the 73 the eventual National Champion 1997 team put up against Cal State Stanislaus during the second week of April of that year. However, a closer looks at those box scores reveals that three of those games were nine-inning affairs and two were in Turlock, so the Wildcats actually had 32 innings to put up those 73 runs.
This weekend, Chico State needed just 28 cracks at Central Washington’s pitching to put up 70 runs. That’s an average of two-and-a-half runs per inning. After being held scoreless for the first two innings of Saturday’s doubleheader, the Wildcats scored at least one run in 22 of the series’ last 26 frames, putting a crooked number on the board 15 times.
The Wildcats hit .477 as a team for the weekend, slugged .839, and sported an on-base percentage of .517. They cracked 11 home runs, 21 doubles, and a triple. Seventy-two of Chico State’s 155 at-bats came with runners in scoring position, and the Wildcats hit .528 in those situations.
With the four wins, Chico State improved to 10-2 overall and 8-0 at home. The Wildcats have now won 18 of their last 19 at Nettleton Stadium going back to last season.
Johnny Hay finished the weekend 11-for-15 with four home runs and 11 RBI and at one point hit safely in nine at-bats in a row. That streak ended in Sunday’s opening game with a sacrifice fly followed by a walk before he finally had an unproductive at-bat. He went 4-for-7 with a double, home run, and drove in five Sunday. Adrian Bringas (4-for-4 with a double, home run and three RBI), Jackson Evans (4-for-8 with a home run and four RBI), Michael Shultz (3-for-4 with three RBI), Michael Murphy (3-for-6 with two doubles and three RBI), and Kevin Seaver (3-for-6 with a double and two RBI) were some of the other offensive standouts for the Wildcats on Sunday.
Ian Waldron collected the win in relief in the first game, allowing just one hit in two-and-two-thirds innings to improve to 1-0. He entered the game with the bases loaded and one out in the Central Washington sixth, having just watched his team fall behind 9-8.Waldron got that freight-train of a Chico State offense back to hitting quickly with a double-play and was rewarded with the game-tying run in the bottom-half of the inning and the game-winning run one frame later.
Game Two starter Kevin Brahney (1-0) earned his first win in a Chico State uniform, firing five innings of four-hit baseball and striking out seven.
Chico State, which swept a doubleheader against Central Washington Saturday by scores of 24-2 and 12-1, looked ready to roll to two more easy wins when it put three runs on the board in the first inning of Sunday’s opener, two in the second, and anther in the third. Adam Arakawa’s RBI-double and Hay’s two-run single made it 3-0 after one. Jordan Larson and Arakawa plated a run apiece in the second. And Hay homered with one out in the third for his ninth consecutive hit (including four home runs) in nine at-bats to make it 6-1.
Central Washington made this one a little tougher, however. The Wildcats (yes, that’s their nickname as well) scored twice in the fourth and five times in the fifth to take an 8-6 lead. But those were the only two crooked numbers Central Washington put up all weekend. And against a Chico State offense that was seemingly scoring every time it got a turn, a two-run cushion was far from enough.
Chico State tied the game 8-8 with two runs in the bottom of the fifth. Hay drove in a run with a sacrifice fly and Hunter Buckmore singled home Seaver.
The teams traded runs in the sixth before Chico State took a 10-9 lead with a run in the seventh on Deven Braden’s sacrifice fly and then busted the game open in the eighth with Arakawa’s RBI-double, Seaver’s sacrifice fly, and Evans’ two-run home run.
Brian Fowler and Casey Edelbrock combined on a scoreless ninth to close the door.
The door remained closed for Central Washington in the nightcap. Chico State’s three-run first was all it
would really need as Brahney, Scott Newberry, and Edelbrock combined on a four-hitter. That’s certainly not all the Wildcats got, however. Bringas homered, doubled, and drove in three runs. Shultz went 3-for-3 with three RBI. And Evans, Murphy, Larson, and Danny Dyer drove in two runs apiece.
Chico State added six runs in the third to make it a 9-0 game, two more in the fourth, four more in the fifth, and five more in the sixth. Twelve different Chico State players finished with at least one hit, 11 drove in at least a run, and 10 scored at least a run.
Chico State will try to stay hot when it hosts Cal Poly Pomona in a four-game California Collegiate Athletic Association series beginning Friday at 6 p.m.
Central Washington, which was picked to finish second in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference by that conference’s coaches, fell to 2-8.
Chico State has now won 55 of its last 59 regular-season non-conference games at home and 126 out of 144 overall since the 1996 season. Against GNAC teams, the Wildcats are now 56-11 all-time, including 50-6 at home. They’ve won six of seven all-time meetings against Central Washington.
GAME 1 BOX SCORE
GAME 2 BOX SCORE
