LOS ANGELES, CALIF. - On Friday, April 14th, the Sonoma State baseball team opened up a crucial road series against Cal State LA, needing to rattle off several wins down the stretch of the regular season to make a playoff push. After going down 5-0 right out of the gate, the Seawolves would rally with a pair of 2-run homers from
Braeden Holliday and
Chris Ortiz to retake a 6-5 lead in the 7th. Cal State LA would quickly grab back the lead in the bottom half of the inning and go on to retire the next six SSU hitters to hang on for the 1-run victory.
4TH INNING:
Junior right hander
Nik Kamages would make his 5th start and team leading 10th appearance of the season but struggled out of the gate giving up a solo shot in the first and then a 4-run 3rd inning before exiting the game. The Seawolves would grab a pair back in the top of the fourth with a 2-run shot from
Braeden Holliday. Holliday belted his 4th homer of the season to the deepest part of the yard in right center field to make it a 5-2 game.
6TH AND 7TH INNING:
Sophomore right hander
Caleb Davis would make his 8th appearance of the season after taking over for Kamages to start the fourth. Davis would give the Seawolves exactly what they needed, three scoreless innings into the middle portion of the game. Davis would get out of a jam in the 4th with a big double play and then record a pair of strikeouts in the 6th to keep LA off the scoreboard.
In the top of the 6th, SSU would take advantage of a pair of 1-out hits and put up another two runs to make it just a 1-run game. Holliday would ground out to short to score
Mark Hernandez and then
Cooper Callison would shoot a 2-out single to left to score
Christopher Wright.
In the 7th, it would be first year catcher
Chris Ortiz who continues to flex his subtle power as he belted his 4th homer of the season to deep left field. The 2-run shot would catapult the Seawolves into a 6-5 lead, their first of the game.
Davis would reach his limit in the bottom half of the 7th after hitting two LA batters and then a wild pitch to tie the game up. After a pitching change, the Golden Eagles would cash in with an RBI single up the middle to retake a 7-6 lead. Sonoma State would go down in order in the 8th and 9th to end their late game rally, giving LA the 7-6 series opener victory.
The Seawolves did combine for 10 hits in the game with multiple hit performances from Holliday, Wright, and junior catcher
Lucas Townsend. Holliday and Ortiz were responsible for five of the team's six RBI's in the game.
LOOKING AHEAD:
The Seawolves dropped the series opener with the Golden Eagles and fall to 12-16 overall and 6-14 in CCAA play. The series will resume on Saturday, April 15th with a doubleheader starting at 1:00 PM. Live stats and stream links can be found at sonomaseawolves.com and you can stream the game LIVE on the CCAA Network.
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