The Santa Rosa Junior College baseball team moved to 6-0 in the preseason as the bats remained on fire, leading a comeback 10-4 victory over the Marin Mariners at home on Wednesday.
The offense continued to shine with a second straight game of eight or more hits. After an impressive 8-2 win on Jan. 30 against Solano, the Bear Cubs followed up with a 10-run, 12-hit performance on Wednesday.
The Bear Cubs bats struck quickly as freshman designated hitter J.T. Summers reached on a fielder’s choice, followed by sophomore first baseman Josh Martin double to bring him home, giving the Bear Cubs a quick 1-0 lead in the first. That lead would not last long, however, as the Marin Mariners responded quickly.
Freshman pitcher Luke Dillon opened the game, going only 1 1/3 innings while giving up four hits and three runs and striking out two. Sophomore Jordan Giacomini came in for relief with the bases loaded in the second inning and limited the damage to four runs.
“It wasn’t bad baseball,” assistant coach Tom Francois said. “The SRJC pitchers were throwing strikes. The Mariners hitters were just hitting them.”
Giacomini settled in, going three more innings in relief without allowing a run. Those three innings set the tone for the rest of the game as sophomore relievers Russel Freedheim and Luke Schat combined for four more shutout innings in relief.
Some stellar Marin defense helped keep the game 4-1, with the Bear Cubs having their chances in the third and fourth innings, leaving three on base, including two in scoring position.
“We were having some good at-bats, but they just weren’t productive,” Francois said.
The Bear Cubs finally broke through in the fifth inning and never looked back. After singles by sophomore Cameron Duran and freshman Ayden Herrguth, freshman Cooper Wood reached on a drag bunt with two strikes to keep the line moving.
“We’ve got a guy with speed like Wood,” Francois said. “We’re going to have him put it down. You see how it worked out.”
Summers drove in both Duran and Herrguth on an RBI double. Two more walks in the inning kept the rally going, and the Bear Cubs capitalized, scoring four more runs and sending 11 batters to the plate.
“We started getting dialed in,” Francois said. “It’s just reading these guys. And so once you get that confidence going and that momentum, then things happen.”
The Bear Cubs weren’t done yet, as Summers set the table for a Josh Martin home run that extended the lead to 9-4.
“They kept coming with the fastball, and they thought they could beat me with it,” Martin said. “I knew they were coming back with it again, then saw it, and just hit it.”
The Bear Cubs added one more as Summers, with his third hit of the game, scored on a Joe Brown sac fly that pushed the lead to six.
“We had a lot of prep the last few days, so it was kind of just time for me to lock in, you know,” Summers said.
Schat shut the door on a 10-4 Bear Cubs victory. The team will travel to take on Cañada in their next game on Friday as they search for their seventh straight win to open the season.
bella • Feb 6, 2025 at 12:23 pm
Enjoyed this article. Congrats on the huge win!