The Pitman High baseball squad was looking to solidify their spot in the playoffs with a win over cross town rival Turlock High, but Bulldog Pitcher Blake Cederlind had other plans.
The starting pitcher kept the Pride’s bats silent by allowing only one run in six innings, netting Turlock a 7-1 victory.
“Cederlind did a good job of having a good tempo and kept our hitters on his page instead of the other way around,” Pitman head coach John Acha said.
Pitman would only manage to come away with four hits for the game while the Bulldogs had over 10, with four players topping out with multiple hits.
“I am happy with how we played. It was one of our better team games,” Turlock head coach Mark de la Motte said. “Guys that don’t play often played today and that is important for a team to come together. I am happy for that. Our guys just played their game and played well.”
With the win, Turlock is now comfortably in first place with an 8-1 CCC record and have won six straight games.
Pitman dropped to fourth in league (4-5) behind third place Atwater (5-4) and has a 1-4 record for their last five games, all of which have been in league bouts.
“Defensively they did well and hit the ball. We also had our miscues on defense but that was not why we lost. It is a big game and the focus sometimes you see it get misdirected. We played them well, it was just a matter of actually being flat and not in it completely,” Acha said.
It was 0-0 until the third inning with two outs when Pitman pitcher Josh Hernandez walked Turlock’s Brett Cumberland followed by an Alex Pallios , which then resulted in a two-run double blooper from Austin Bush to crack the game open and allowed the Bulldogs to take a 2-0 lead after a throwing error at home.
Turlock added their third run when Gavin Gaffaney’s RBI double drove in Nick Benson. After that Pitman made a pitching change with Daren Finney.
Unfortunately for Finney it was not a pretty outing after he allowed the Bulldogs to tack on four more runs.
Pitman saw some light in the sixth when sophomore Matt Carrigg, who reached base three times with two walks and one hit, was able to score after Dakota Spillers smacked an RBI single for the Pride to make it 4-1, but that would be the lone run of the game for Pitman.
“We got some key hits, put the ball in place, which we have had some trouble doing, so it was solid defense. One of our better games,” de la Motte said.
Cederlind was on the mound until the sixth as he picked up the win, struck out six and allowed one run and two walks.
“I had all three pitches work for me today; my fastball, change and my curve was really effective. I hung it a few times but I worked around it and my team played great overall,” Cederlind said.
The Bulldogs bats got hot in the top of the seventh as they added on three more runs and Nick Gonzales would finish the last inning, giving up just a single and striking out the final batter.
“He was getting a little tired and that last inning stressed him. We were thinking about sending him out for the last outing but the top lasted so long and we brought in Nick [Gonzales] who was fresh and pitched great,” said de la Motte.
Jon Temple, Gaffaney and Bush each added on two hits and two RBI while Pallios finished the day 3-for-4.
The second of back-to-back cross town rival and league clashes will commence at 4 p.m. today at Turlock High.
“Good pitching and execution will help us, since we didn’t do that on Wednesday,” Acha said about meeting up with their cross town rivals today.
“In baseball you never know what can happen, we just have to come back with the same approach and put the ball in play and try to get the lead then keep adding to it, it doesn’t always happen, but that’s our approach keep it close and let our offense and defense do the work,” de la Motte said.
