LONG BEACH, Calif.\u00a0\u2014 Long Beach State struck first with a four-run opening inning, but California Baptist responded with a decisive second inning and held on for a 10-5-win Monday night at Bohl Diamond at Blair Field.<\/p>\n
The Dirtbags wasted no time setting the tone, capitalizing on control issues early.\u00a0Trevor Goldenetz<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jake Evans<\/a>\u00a0were both hit by pitches to open the game, and\u00a0Smith Chandler<\/a>\u00a0worked a walk to load the bases. A wild pitch brought in the first run, and\u00a0Matt Toomey<\/a>\u00a0followed with a single into the outfield to keep the pressure on.\u00a0Dylan Lina<\/a>\u00a0added to the surge with a base hit that turned into another run after a throwing error in right field, helping Long Beach State build a 4-0 lead before the Lancers could settle in.<\/p>\n CBU answered immediately in a chaotic second inning that flipped the game. Ben Castelli and Connor Ross opened the frame with back-to-back walks to put runners on first and second, and Matt Chavez followed with another walk to load the bases. After a pitching change for LBSU\u00a0brought in\u00a0Alex Ramos<\/a>, Cole Howarth lifted a sacrifice fly to\u00a0send Castelli\u00a0home from third while Chavez remained at first and Ross advanced to second.\u00a0<\/p>\n The pressure continued as Deisel Toth drew a walk to reload the bases, and Carter Eberhard followed with another walk that scored in Ross from third to cut the lead to 4-2. Chris Ramirez then lined a single to left field to score Chavez and trim the deficit to one with the bases still loaded. A balk by\u00a0Alex Ramos<\/a>\u00a0allowed Toth to score from third while moving Ramirez to second and Eberhard to third, tying the game at 4-4 and prompting another pitching change for the Dirtbags in the inning, bringing in\u00a0Jaxon Baker<\/a>\u00a0from the bullpen.<\/p>\n With runners on second and third, Riley Hunsaker delivered a two-run single to give\u00a0CBU its first lead of the night. Moments later, Bryce McFeely launched a two-run homer to right field, bringing Hunsaker home and capping the eight-run inning. Castelli later struck out for the second out, Ross reached on a single and stole second, and Chavez struck out swinging to end the inning with the Lancers in front 8-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n From there, both teams leaned heavily on their bullpens in a game that featured 15 combined pitchers, eight from\u00a0the Lancers\u00a0and seven from Long Beach State.\u00a0Jaxon Baker<\/a>\u00a0provided stability in the middle innings, striking out six batters and limiting further damage, while\u00a0Joey Iglesias<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mason Tymick<\/a>\u00a0kept the Lancers off the board to give the Dirtbags a chance to respond.\u00a0<\/p>\n Long Beach State chipped away in the seventh when Ty Borgogno <\/a>reached on a fielder’s choice and\u00a0Trotter Enright<\/a>\u00a0delivered a timely single on an 0-2 pitch, bringing home Borgogno who had reached second on a wild pitch, to cut the deficit to 8-5. Despite putting runners on in later innings, the Dirtbags were unable to find the key hit to complete the comeback.\u00a0<\/p>\n California Baptist added insurance in the ninth, using a hit batter and a walk to set up Matthew Bline’s two-run double that\u00a0extended their\u00a0lead to five.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Dirtbags will open a three-game series against Big West rival Cal State Fullerton in the 15-mile rivalry series this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif.\u00a0\u2014 Long Beach State struck first with a four-run opening inning, but California Baptist responded with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-256191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}