CHICO – Coming off a very bad taste of defeat in the CCAA series opener against first-place Cal State San Marcos on Friday night, the Chico State baseball team returned to Nettleton Stadium on Saturday and gave the Cougars a dose of that sour feeling, taking game one of the doubleheader 15-4 while holding on to win the evening contest, 3-2.
By taking the two wins, Chico State improves to 13-7 overall and 8-7 in the CCAA. The Cougars drop to 12-8 overall and 11-4 in conference play.
Game 1 – CHICO 15, CSUSM 4
While the Cougars took game one of the series by scoring 11 runs in the first four innings, the Wildcats had a similar outcome in game two only this time they scored 10 runs in the fourth inning. Already ahead 2-0 thanks to RBI singles by Elijah Pascual and Stefan Foley in the third inning, Andrew Crane led off the fourth with a big double to left field, Carson Stevens laid down a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt and even reached base safely as the Cougars chose to try to get Crane out at third unsuccessfully.
The bases became loaded when Ernie Arambula bunted his way to a single. Lucas Mariani drove in the inning's first run with a single to right field, Pascual drove in two with a base hit to center and Troy Kent cleaned up the bases with a three-run home run to right.
Foley kept the momentum going with a single and Daniel Vierra drew a walk to put runners back on. In his second plate appearance of the inning, Crane came up clutch again with an RBI double down the left field line. Stevens followed through with a two-run single and scored when Arambula reached on an error to give Chico State a 12-2 lead.
In just his third start in his Chico State career, Marco Ibarra threw a new personal-best seven innings and struck out three batters while giving up four runs on eight hits. Tych Ochs got two outs in the eighth before handing the ball to James Courshon, who went the rest of the way giving up just a hit while striking out two.
Chico State ended up winning the hit column 17-9. Since the beginning of the Stanislaus State series last weekend, the Wildcats have recorded 84 hits in those six games, 17 of which were doubles and six were home runs. They also had drawn 35 walks during that span.
Game 2 – CHICO 3, CSUSM 2
Game three of the series was the complete opposite compared to the first two as the matchup leaned more towards pitching than offense. The game only saw 10 hits total, six of which were from the Cougars.
The Cougars quickly jumped ahead 1-0 using a triple and a double, but the lead didn't last long as the Wildcats were able to respond them moment they were able to get their hands on the bat. Alexander Johnson hit a one-out single, Vierra drew a walk and Jesse Gadd came up clutch with a two-run double to left field to give Chico State a 2-1 lead.
The scoring difference in the game was in the fourth inning. Gadd hit a ground ball to second and the charging second baseman fielded the ball cleanly but made a wild throw to first that end up out of the field of play and put the Wildcats' first baseman to second. Pinch-hitter Stefan Foley hit a grounder to the left side, the third baseman made the throw to first base for the putout but the return throw in attempt to get Gadd out trying to move to third missed and it allowed the Wildcats to take a 3-1 lead.
Chico State used five pitchers to get through the 7-inning game. Nolan Meredith got it started by throwing 1.2 innings. He got into trouble in the second inning with the bases loaded and two out, Ryan Silvers came in and got the Wildcats out of the threat by getting the first batter he saw to line out to Gadd at first base. Silvers drew a leadoff walk to start the third but a hard-hit line drive set Gadd up to make a double play and a flyout ended the inning.
Joseph Loubert threw two hitless innings with four strikeouts while giving up a leadoff walk in the sixth that eventually turned into a run. Jeremy Keller and Scott Lewis each threw an inning and conceded only a hit in their respective outings.
The Wildcats will look to take the series win on Sunday at 11 a.m.
