Despite breaking their early win streak, the California Pintos managed to pull out two victories during a week full of back-to-back games.
Pintos baseball had gone a perfect 4-0 on the young season heading into their packed schedule last week that had four games in five days.
California’s first game of the week was on the road against the Linn Wildcats. For five innings, Linn pitcher Austin Dudenhoeffer kept the Pintos’ offense at bay by throwing five scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts.
The Pintos were down 1-0 in the top of the sixth, but had the bases loaded with one out. However, the Wildcats got the last two outs of the inning to keep California scoreless. Linn added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth and secured a 3-0 win in the seventh to hand California their first loss of the season.
California hosted two games Saturday against the Tipton Cardinals and the Jamestown Eagles.
In their first game against Tipton, California pitcher Hayden Kilmer got off to a rocky start but received a lift from his teammates. He scored four runs in the second inning and another three runs in the fourth inning. Kilmer managed to strikeout seven batters and allow just one run on two hits in five innings. The Pintos remained in the lead for the rest of the game and defeated Tipton 9-3. Third baseman Will Edwards batted a perfect 3-3 with two RBIs and a run scored.
In their game against Jamestown, the Pintos picked up where they left off against Tipton. Taking advantage of six errors by Jamestown, California put up three runs in the first, third and fourth innings to put a stamp on the game. In addition, pitcher Gavin Porter earned the first win of his career by allowing no runs on one hit and three strikeouts in five innings pitched on 53 total pitches. The Pintos won the game 10-0 in five innings after a bases-loaded walk to relief batter Andy Redden.
Two days later, the Pintos were back on their home field to face the Belle Tigers and end their week of play.
Just like in their first game of the week against Linn, California’s offense struggled to put runs on the board. However, that changed when catcher Brayden Hallford hit an RBI single to right field to tie the game 1-1.
However, in the top of the sixth inning, California ran into pitching troubles. A wild pitch and an infield error led Belle to retake the lead 3-1. The Tigers’ next two batters hit an RBI single and an RBI double to cap off a five-run inning for Belle. The Pintos were unable to drive home a run for the rest of the game — enabling the Tigers to win 6-1.
After going 2-2 on the week, the Pintos’ record now stands at 6-2.
Pintos head coach Steven Stock said the two losses California suffered at the hands of Linn and Belle may be helpful for the Pintos. Stock attributed most of California’s batting struggles this season to a lack of capitalizing on opportunities.
However, Stock is still satisfied with his team’s pitching and defense in the first few weeks of the season. He said it will be California’s defense and pitching that will likely determine the direction of their season.
“We’ve struggled at the plate for really most of the year and you’ve got to give credit to Linn’s pitcher. He shut us down. But I think that loss helped our kids refocus. When you strikeout 14 times in a game, you don’t give yourself a chance to win. However, we came home and took care of business on Saturday and Gavin got his first varsity win on the mound against Jamestown,” Stock said. “Hayden struggled to find the strike zone early against Tipton but once he did, he settled in and did what we asked him to do. Same thing with Colin Kruger in the seventh inning of that game. We’ve got a great group of kids and we’re going to go as far as our pitching and defense takes us.”
Today, the Pintos will play at St. Paul Lutheran in Concordia. They will then play in the New Bloomfield Tournament on Friday and Saturday, followed by a rivalry game at Blair Oaks on Tuesday.