Santa Rosa Holds Onto Late Lead To Earn The 6-5 Win
Fresno, CA - The Santa Rosa Bear Cubs were led by the Most Valuable Player in North, Jake Scheiner, along with the Pitcher of the Year in the North, Alec Rennard. Their shortstop Scheiner struck out his first time at bat and that seemed to be the only issue he had on the day. He followed his first at-bat with three hits in his next three plate appearances, including a monstrous homerun to left center to clear the high fence at John Euless Ballpark.
The pitching combo of Rennard and Anthony Bender held the Cypress Chargers to 6 hits and just 2 earned runs. Cypress pitcher Tylor Megil had 7 strikeouts in his first 5 1/3 innings of work but allowed all six runs given up by the Chargers.
Myles Andrews had two hits for the victories Bear Cubs while the only player with multiple hits for the Chargers was leadoff hitter Aaron Case. The Chargers were able to mount their normal late inning heroics but unlike many times this year they were unable to pull out the late victory. The 9th inning started off with a hit by Nick Reeser down the left field line followed with a Bo Coolen walk, putting the tying runs on the bases for Cypress. Nathan Rodriguez put a bunt down the third base line that was thrown away by the third baseman. Reeser was running hard scoring on the sacrifice. That left the tying run on second and the winning run on first. With no outs a Paul Gomez sac bunt moved the runners up to second and third. With what looked like a tough situation with the winning run in scoring position, Bender showed great grit and was able to get pinch hitter Cory Wildhagen to strikeout and leadoff hitter Case to hit a fly ball that leftfield Mitch West put away for the final out of the game.