ALAMEDA, Calif. -- The Cal State East Bay baseball team won its third straight non-conference series to open the 2017 season after sweeping Holy Names in a doubleheader on Sunday at College of Alameda.
After a rain delay of an hour and forty minutes, the Pioneers jumped out quickly in game one and pulled away for a 17-3 victory. The back end of the twinbill was a night game as a result, with CSUEB prevailing 6-1 to take three our of four in the series.
The Pioneers are now 9-3 this season, and they have completed their non-conference slate without any cancellations despite a great deal of rain over the last three weeks.
East Bay scored extremely quickly to start the first game, which would serve as an indicator of how the day would go for the CSUEB offense.
Marcus Wise and
Michael Thomas traded doubles to make it 1-0, and then
Dallas Dey knocked another run with a ground out before the Hawks even got to bat.
The Pioneers scored five more runs in the second inning, then two in the third inning, and four in the fourth. By the time starter
Jacob Call came back out to pitch the bottom of the fourth, he was staked to a 13-0 lead. And while the East Bay bats were exploding, Call wasn't giving Holy Names an inch. He shut down the home team, striking out six over 5.0 hitless innings for his second win.
Ransome Alexander followed Call out of the bullpen and was very effective, turning in 2.0 scoreless innings with no walks and one punchout. Seniors
Brandon Acosta and
Joshua Kubiske threw an inning each to close out the game.
All told, the Pioneers tallied 21 hits, drew seven walks, and took advantage of four Holy Names errors. Eight of the nine East Bay starters finished with multiple hits. The only player who didn't was
Kris Bartlett, who still reached base four times going 1-for-4 with three walks and two runs.
Wise and Thomas both had monster performances to lead the way. They each went 4-for-6, each stole a base, and together accounted for two of the team's six doubles. Thomas drove in a team-high five runs, all of which came in the first four innings.
Although it didn't end with the Pioneers scoring 17 runs, the second game of the day followed a similar script at the beginning. Once again the visitors put Holy Names in an early hole, and once again they rode strong starting pitching to a victory.
Thomas knocked in his sixth run of the day to start things off in the top of the first. After Bartlett reached on an error, Thomas drove a two-out RBI double to left field. It was his only hit of game two, but it staked CSUEB to a lead it would never relinquish.
Right-hander
Nick Risucci struck out two batters in a scoreless bottom of the first, and then the Pioneer bats broke the game open in the second inning. Five straight batters reached base to start the frame, as
Wyatt Foreman and
Pablo Artero singled,
Dallas Dey reach on an error,
Evan Steele walked, and Bartlett sliced a two-run double to left field. After the Hawks finally recorded an out,
Troy Resch ripped another opposite field double to plate two more runs and make the score 6-0.
Risucci allowed a solo home run in the fourth, but he was otherwise excellent. The junior scattered seven hits, struck out six, and didn't walk a batter in 5.0 innings of work. Senior
Derek Oetken and junior
Andrew Fernandez both tossed scoreless innings to finish off the win.
The Pioneers finished with eight hits and played errorless defense in the nightcap. Foreman and
Zack Perugi were to only two CSUEB players with multiple hits, both finishing 2-for-4.
After a successful conference slate, East Bay now looks forward to the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) schedule, which begins next weekend with a crucial four-game series against North Division rival Cal State Monterey Bay.
