STOCKTON – Filling out the lineup card has recently become a roll of the dice for Chico State baseball coach Dave Taylor. So he had to be pleasantly surprised when he rolled a pair of deuces Friday night. Every play in Taylor’s starting lineup produced at least one hit or one RBI as the Wildcats walloped rival Sonoma State 22-9 on opening night of the 2011 California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Baseball Championship Tournament Thursday at Klein Family Field in Stockton.
The guess here is that Taylor will find filling out the lineup card for Friday’s 3 PM winners’ bracket game against UC San Diego a more enjoyable exercise. The winner of that game will advance to the CCAA title game Saturday at 2 PM. The loser will play again at 7 PM Friday in an elimination game.
Sonoma State, ranked one spot ahead of No. 4 Chico State in the West Region rankings entering the tournament, will face West No. 5 Cal Poly Pomona Friday at 11 AM in an elimination game.
The 22 runs are a new tournament record, the second most scored in Chico State postseason history, and the most scored by the Wildcats since a 22-4 victory against Cal Poly Pomona in the 13th game of last season.
The Wildcats had struggled in all facets of the game while losing nine of their final 11 regular season games, including three of four last weekend against Sonoma State. But Thursday was anything but a struggle. Matt Anderson went 4-for-5 with four RBI, Jackson Evans went 3-for-6 with a homer and three RBI, Ian McKay went 3-for-5 with three RBI, Cody Foster went 3-for-5 with two doubles and scored four times, and Adrian Bringas went 2-for-6 with a home run, two RBI and four runs scored. Oh yeah, and Eric Angerer, Shane Kroker and Ben Manlove notched two hits apiece, while Justin Manci drove in a pair of runs. Am I forgetting anyone? That’s right, TJ Yasuhara’s one-out single in the first kick-started a four-run frame and extended his hitting streak to eight games.
Stephen Thompson came on in relief of starter Brian Buckham in the fourth to earn the win and improve to 3-1 on the season.
Yasuhara’s line-drive single seemed innocuous off Sonoma State starter Kenny Arnerich, a First Team All-CCAA selection who handcuffed the Wildcats for eight innings Friday, allowing just one run on six hits. But the tables were turned Thursday. Foster followed with an RBI-double, Angerer added an RBI-double two batters later, and Anderson made it 4-0 with a two-run single to left.
Sonoma State answered with a pair of runs in the bottom half of the inning, but the Wildcats pushed the lead to 7-2 in the second. Yasuhara hit a sacrifice fly, Evans singled and later scored on a wild pitch, and Bringas bashed a solo home run.
Six more runs in the fourth proved important when Sonoma State’s Steven Filippi hit a grand slam that chased Buckham in the bottom-half of the inning. Evans’ three-run blast had made it 13-2, but the grand slam kept the Seawolves in striking distance at 13-6.
They weren’t in striking distance for long. The Seawolves committed three errors during Chico State’s five-run fifth, highlighted by McKay’s two-run double with the bases loaded, stretching the lead to 18-8. The Wildcats added three more runs in the sixth and another run in the eighth and cruised on to victory.
UC San Diego 9, Cal Poly Pomona 6
The red-hot Tritons won their 18th straight and perhaps helped the Wildcats out by beating Cal Poly Pomona, ranked No. 5 in the West Region, a spot behind the Wildcats, entering this championship tournament.
Danny Susdorf and Kellen Lee hit two home runs apiece to lead the Tritons’ five-homer barrage. Blake Tagmyer also went deep for top-seeded UC San Diego, which improved to 39-12 on the season. Tim Shibuya (11-3) earned the win with seven shutout innings, allowing just five hits.
Cal Poly Pomona (30-20) fought back from a 7-0 deficit to make a game of it. Jordan Whitman’s two-run homer capped a four-run eighth that cut the lead to 7-4. But UC San Diego answered with a pair of runs in the bottom half of the inning to stretch the lead to 9-4.
The Broncos kept coming, however, and Humberto Tovalin’s two-run double made it 9-6 with one out in the ninth. But that was as close as they could get.
GAME NOTES – The 22 runs are the second most ever scored by a Chico State team in the postseason. They scored 25 in the program’s first-ever College World Series game against Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville on May 25, 1997…Ryan Sasser, who scored the game-winning run when that team eventually won its first NCAA Championship six days later, was in the stands Thursday.
BOX SCORE
