WNC Baseball: First-inning errors undermine Wildcats in Riverside
Submitted by editor on Fri, 02/13/2015 - 10:37pm
If the Western Nevada College baseball team intends to win its third straight series to start the season, the Wildcats will need to beat Riverside City College in the teams' final two games this weekend.
Riverside capitalized on four first-inning errors and then rode the pitching of left-hander Austin Sodders to a 8-1 victory over WNC of Carson City on Friday night in Riverside, Calif.
The unbeaten Tigers, ranked eighth in the California Community College Athletic Association preseason poll, scored four unearned runs against WNC sophomore right-hander Max Karnos in the first inning.
"If you have a groundball pitcher on the mound, you're going to have to field groundballs. We didn't make the plays and didn't make the catches," said WNC coach D.J. Whittemore.
Sodders, a 6-foot-4 sophomore, took it from there, scattering seven hits and allowing one earned run in seven innings. He struck out six and walked one batter.
With it second straight defeat, WNC's season record slipped to 6-3. Despite the lopsided score, the Wildcats nearly outhit the Tigers, finishing one hit shy of the host's nine. Sophomore outfielder Jake Bennett led the Wildcats with three hits, while sophomore infielder Corey Pool contributed two. The Wildcats combined a couple of base hits to scratch across a run against Sodders in the second inning. Pool came home on a base hit by Brandon Lapointe.
WNC brought the tying run to the plate with Riverside ahead 4-1 in the sixth inning, but Sodders recorded his sixth strikeout of the night to end the threat.
Demonstrating complete control of the strike zone, 49 of Sodders' first 66 deliveries went for strikes.
"Their lefty was staked to a big lead and that changed his game plan," Whittemore said. "He pounded the strike zone with fastballs and just tried to stay out of the big inning."
Meanwhile, Karnos (1-1) needed 84 pitches to complete four innings. He allowed just five hits and struck out four in his five innings of work.
"Max kept us in it and saved our bullpen for the weekend," Whittemore said.
In the pivotal first frame, a two-out infield error set up Thomas Pincin's two-run double to left field. Then, a pair of errors on an infield grounder put two Tigers in scoring position. Roosevelt Bates took advantage by sending a two-strike offering from Karnos into left field for a two-run single to stretch Riverside's lead to 4-0. WNC committed is fourth error of the inning in the outfield, but that baserunner was left on base.
WNC put two runners on base with two outs in the ninth inning against reliever Ryan Avila, but a fly out ended the game.
The two teams meet again Saturday at 1 p.m.
"We're just going to worry about winning a game from them tomorrow. So far, eight teams have tried, and nobody has done it," Whittemore said.
