SEASIDE—The Chico State baseball team made the long drive south to Seaside Friday to open their California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) road campaign. The Wildcats didn't leave the strong brand of baseball they've been playing of late at home, opening the four-game series with a 5-1 win.
The Wildcats featured strong pitching and defense and executed their offense to near perfection in winning for the eighth time in their last nine games, improving to 8-3 overall and 4-1 in the CCAA. They are currently among three teams tied atop the conference standings.
Cal State Monterey Bay, which dipped to 4-7 overall and 1-4 in the CCAA, opened the season ranked No. 39 in the nation and picked to finish second in the conference's preseason coaches' poll.
Grant Larson (3-0) logged six-and-a-third innings, allowing just one run, and relievers Alex Kent, Daniel Foret and Josh Verdon combined for two-and-two-thirds innings of no-hit baseball, striking out six.
Eddie Zavala, the league's leading hitter entering play, remained red hot, banging out four hits, including a pair of doubles, to raise his average to .543. JT Navarro, who entered his senior campaign with only one collegiate home run (during his freshman season at Orange Coast College), slammed his third round-tripper of the season during a three-hit effort. Willie Lajoie went 2-for-5 with an RBI double. And the Wildcats skilled their way to a trio of runs via sacrifice bunts.
Games two and three of the series will take place Saturday, beginning at 1 p.m., and the series concludes with a single game Saturday at 11 a.m. Every Chico State baseball game this season will be broadcast live on AM-1290 KPAY Sports with a link to the live stream at
www.chicowildcats.com.
The Wildcats grabbed a first-inning lead when Turner Olson (who singled with one out) scored on Zavala's double down the third-base line.
They tacked on another run in the fourth when Jorge Perez reached on an error leading off the inning, moved to second on Kyle Pineda's sacrifice bunt, advanced to third on a wild pitch, and scored on Tyler Grissom's squeeze bunt.
Larson kept the Otters off the board until the fourth when they cut the lead in half, but the senior lefty got a grounder to strand the possible tying and go-ahead runs on base. He worked around an error in the fifth and a leadoff walk in the sixth before getting the first hitter of the seventh to end his evening. He scattered six hits, walked, two, and struck out five to bring his career strikeout total to 190. Larson is just 10 punch-outs away from becoming only the fourth player in the program's history to reach 200.
Still nursing a one-run lead, the Wildcats got some insurance in the sixth. Zavala led off the inning with a hustle double and moved to third on Adam Muñoz's sacrifice bunt before scoring on Pineda's two-out single to right.
They again used the sacrifice bunt to stretch out the lead further in the seventh. Navarro laced a single leading off the inning and advanced to second on Olson's sacrifice bunt. Lajoie doubled down the left-field line to make it 4-1.
Navarro led off the ninth with a homer to left to wrap up the scoring.
Meanwhile, Chico State's relievers kept the Otters' offense from even threatening to close the gap.
Kent came on with one down in the seventh, and after walking the first hitter he faced, got a fly-out and strikeout to end the inning.
Foret struck out the first three hitters he faced in the eighth, the second of which reached on a passed ball, and got a fly ball to left to end the frame.
Verdon came on with a four-run lead in the ninth and struck out the first two hitters he faced before finishing the Otters off with a grounder to second.
Chico State relievers, in the Wildcats' last three games, have combined to allow only one run on four hits in their 11.1 innings of work.
