TAFT--Feather River's offense was in midseason form on Saturday afternoon, pounding out 27 hits and scoring 23 runs on their way to a doubleheader sweep of Taft College.
The Golden Eagles won the opener 10-7 and completed the series sweep (they also won on Friday afternoon) with a 13-6 dusting of the Cougars. That means FRC begins the 2024 season with a 3-0 record.
FRC will head north and play Merced on Sunday before returning to Quincy.
In game one, the Golden Eagles had to rally from behind just like they did on Friday during their 7-4 win.
After a scoreless three innings, FRC got on the board first with a three-spot. Jared Stevenson doubled home a run and catcher Zane Denton had an RBI-single to push the visitors lead to 3-0. But the Cougars stormed back in the bottom half of the inning in a big way, pushing seven runs across the plate. Taft used a combination of four hits, two FRC errors and five walks to make the count 7-4.
Nonetheless the Golden Eagles kept chipping away. Feather River got one run back in the sixth and added two more in the seventh to cut the margin to 7-6. Reed Alexander and Anthony Cepeda had RBI base knocks to bring FRC within one run.
After a scoreless eighth, the Golden Eagles roared back in the ninth. Two walks set the table for Denton's RBI-single to tie the game, and then a Cougar error allowed the go-ahead run to cross the plate. Next, Andrew Lehmann added insurance with a two run single to give FRC a 10-7 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth.
A pair of big freshmen shut down the Cougars over the back three innings to secure the win. Sean Kinney, a 6-1, 260-pounder from Dayton, Nev. pitched 2.1 inning of hitless ball and earned the win, while Will Page-Allen (6-4, 205) made his debut in the ninth. The Australian pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for the save.
Kolt Kurzman had three hits in the opener while Stevenson, Cepeda and Denton had two hits each.
In the afternoon game, the Golden Eagles went long ball. Kurzman homered in the top of the first, Lehmann hit a three-run bomb in the fourth and Alexander blasted a three-run shot in the sixth. By the time Alexander homered, the Golden Eagles had built a 10-3 lead.
Trey Smith worked six innings on the mound to get the win, allowing four earned runs. Caden Hendrickson pitched two solid innings to close out the game, allowing just one hit and no walks.
FRC had plenty of hitting heroes in the second game. Kurzman had three hits, as did Quinten Terrell and Kaito Araki. Lehmann and Cepeda had two more hits as well. Kurzman, a freshman, finished the long day with six hits in ten trips to the plate and scored four times. Cepeda was a combined 4-or-8 in the two games.
The Golden Eagles will take on Merced at noon on Sunday. The Blue Devils have played one game so far, opening its season on Friday with a 12-4 loss to Monterey Peninsula.
