On the day Tommy Wigton threw the first pitch, it was entirely fitting that Ryan O'Shea threw the last. Wigton, retiring after 21 years as the Wildcats' esteemed team manager, was honored prior to the Chico State baseball team's 8-5 win against Cal State Dominguez Hills.
After hearing his praises ring out over the public address system at Nettleton Stadium on a warm and sunny Sunday, Wigton threw out the first pitch – a bit high and wide but with plenty of distance – to Head Coach and long-time friend and colleague Dave Taylor. The one constant during the Wildcats' 21-year run of success under first Lindsay Meggs and then Taylor, Wigton was then presented with a lifetime pass to Chico State athletic events.
Games like Sunday's will have him itching to be in the stands.
Freshman Cameron Santos slugged a two-run triple, RBI-single and two-run double, finishing 3-for-5 with five RBI, and Connor Huesers and Cody Bistline chipped in three hits apiece to key the Wildcats' 14-hit attack. Huesers extended his hitting streak to 10 games in the process.
After seven effective innings from Brad Lohse (2-3), O'Shea got his first multi-inning save of the season. He started by getting the Wildcats out of a bit of a jam. After back-to-back doubles to lead off the eighth, Cal State Dominguez Hills had a runner on second with nobody out. O'Shea escaped unscathed despite allowing his first hit of the season after seven and a third no-hit frames. It was a seeing-eye grounder through the right side that put runners on the corners and brought the tying run to the plate.
But O'Shea induced a ground ball that Dylan Garcia turned into a gorgeous double play, scooping it up, stepping on the bag, and slinging a strike to Cody Slader at second, who tagged the runner out.
O'Shea struck out two in the ninth and three in two innings of work for his sixth save in as many chances. In nine innings of work this season, the senior has allowed just one hit and three walks while striking out 13.
In his sixth season in the program after redshirting as a freshman and then sitting out 2014 as a medical redshirt, O'Shea knows Wigton as well as any Wildcat. That made Sunday's save even more special than the ones before it.
"It was great to close out a win for Tommy on such a special day," O'Shea said. "It's always been inspiring how proud he is to be part of Chico State. It's reflected in how hard he works and how proud he is when he tells those legendary stories about all the moments he's been part of and friends he's made.
"It's always been obvious that Chico State matters to Tommy. Maybe almost as much as Tommy means to Chico State baseball."
Perhaps inspired by the moving pre-game ceremony, the Wildcats jumped out to an early lead. Peter Lecce lined a solo home run over the wall in left-center, his first of the year, leading off the second. And with two men on, Santos smacked a one-hop triple right down the line and off the right-field wall to make it 3-0.
The lead was short-lived, however, as the Toros tagged Lohse for four runs (three earned) on five hits and two errors in the fourth.
Outside of that uprising, Lohse limited the Toros to just three hits from the first to the seventh.
The Wildcats tied things up in the fifth. Huesers singled to start the inning. He was later erased on a fielders' choice, but Tyler Alev advanced to second on Clayton Gelfand's single, to third on a wild pitch, and then scored on a balk.
Dylan Garcia tripled leading off the sixth and scored on Santos' bouncing single up the middle for the go-ahead run.
Santos slammed a two-out, two-run double to straightaway center field in the seventh to stretch the lead to 8-4.
Chico State, 15-19 overall and 14-17 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, will play a makeup of a rained out game at Cal State Stanislaus Tuesday at 4 p.m.
The Wildcats will then wrap up the road portion of their schedule with a four-game set at San Francisco State next weekend before returning home for their final home games of 2015 against Cal State East Bay April 24-26.
