The Chico State baseball team was as low as it’s been all season midway through Sunday’s doubleheader against Sonoma State. Two and a half hours later pitcher Scott Newberry was rapping a single to center field in a lopsided 9-4 win. The Wildcats are heading into the postseason on a high note.
Sonoma State won the opener 12-2, sending Chico State to its ninth loss in 10 games. But the Wildcats got off the mat and pounded out 13 hits, including Jackson Evans’ spirit-raising two-run homer in the first.
The third-seeded Wildcats will attempt a similar uprising Thursday when they meet No. 2 seed Sonoma State at 7 PM in the first round of the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Championship Tournament Thursday at Klein Family Field in Stockton. Top-seeded UC San Diego will take on No. 4 seed Cal Poly Pomona in Thursday’s first game at 3 PM.
TJ Yasuhara banged out three hits and drove in two runs, Michael Schultz went 2-for-3 with a double and a triple, and Matt Anderson went 2-for-4 with an RBI in the second game. True freshman starter Nick Baker improved to 9-2 with the win, surrendering two runs in five frames.
Yasuhara led off the game first with a single and Evans rammed a line drive homer to right to make it 2-0. The Seawolves tied it with a two out, two-run rally in the fourth. But Chico State scored five times in the bottom half of the inning to take control of the game.
Freshman first baseman Eric Angerer, who reached in two of three plate appearances and made some solid defensive plays in just his third start of the season, lined a single through the left side leading off the inning. After moving to third on a throwing error on a pickoff attempt, Angerer scored easily on Matt Anderson’s base hit to left-center. Schultz’s one-out triple to right-center plated Anderson, and then he crossed the plate on Yasuhara’s liner to left. Cody Foster drove in Yasuhara with a base hit later in the inning and then Adrian Bringas’ RBI-single capped the inning.
Angerer was hit by a pitch leading off the sixth to set another rally in motion. He later scored on a wild pitch and then Yasuhara knocked in Ben Manlove (who had stolen second base) to make it 9-2.
Chico State is now 29-18 overall and wrapped up CCAA play at 23-17. Sonoma State is 33-17 overall and 24-16 in the CCAA.
The Seawolves scored in four consecutive innings to break open a close game in the opener. O’Koyea Dickson’s two-run double in the fifth keyed a three-run inning that gave the Seawolves a 4-0 lead and helped chase Wildcats starter Kevin Brahney from the game.
Brahney allowed just four hits in five innings, but walked five and seemed to fatigue under the weight of his high pitch count. He may have also been feeling the effects of a scuffling offense. The Wildcats left two runners on the first and the bases loaded in the fifth.
It was still a winnable game for the Wildcats trailing 4-0 heading into the seventh before Garrett Gooselaw’s two-run double and Steven Filippi’s two-run single helped key a seven-run inning as the Seawolves broke the game open.
Bringas finished with two hits and Phillip Hymas fired a perfect inning in relief, but those were the only two positives for the Wildcats in the opener.
Thank God for game two.
GAME 1 BOX
GAME 2 BOX
