With the Stanislaus Cardinals Babe Ruth summer season underway, the local superstar team that is made up of nine local players from Turlock, Pitman and Hilmar highs came away with a big 15-5 home win in walk-off fashion on Wednesday.
Recent Turlock graduate Cody Cornell hit the walk-off RBI single with one out to keep his team undefeated heading into Saturday’s away game after notching up a win over Lodi at Turlock High.
“We're just putting the pieces together right now so that we can be successful when the tournament approaches us,” Stanislaus head coach Bobby Swedberg said. “With this team we have a lot of mixes and matches, a lot of combinations to go with, so we don’t rely on just one individual person.”
After the 10-run rule victory the Cardinals are two weeks in and now hold a 5-0 overall record.
“We are just trying to gel and do the little things together, you know bunting, hit and run, stealing and that kind of stuff also communicating on and off the field that’s a big part just getting that camaraderie together,” Swedberg said.
Blake Cederlind, who recently graduated from Turlock High, started for the Cardinals pitching just one inning being relieved after allowing three runs on two hits.
Hilmar’s Jacob Ahid relieved Cederlind and finished with three innings of work, allowing just one earned run on two hits.
At the bottom of the third the score was tied 3-3, with the Cardinals going up to the plate.
Ten-runs and one half inning later, the Cardinals had taken a 13-3 lead after an absolutely dominating bottom third where the Cardinals managed to score four runs with no outs. The team racked up six more runs to the total by the end of the game.
Lodi retaliated with one run in the fourth followed by another in the sixth, but in the bottom half of the sixth the Cardinals offense went off and the two runs scored was enough to earn the mercy-rule win.
Turlock alumni Tyler Murphy was back in action as well and he added on two hits for the day with a walk. Cornell finished the day with a 3-for-4 performance.
Pitman alumni Zach Gurr went 2-for-3, while Drew Lewis picked up a walk and a stolen base.
“It is nice to keep the kids from Turlock going, but this year we are definitely loaded and it’s not like that every year, we usually try to get at least one or two from Turlock, but this year we do have a good combination of Turlock and Pitman kids and that’s always good for us,” Swedberg added.
The next game for the Cardinals will be a doubleheader at Hanford today.
