May 11, 2008

Bulldogs' season is over

CSM drops doubleheader to visitors from Cosumnes River

By Greg Lydon / Daily News Correspondent

Seven hours of baseball ended with an empty feeling for College of San Mateo baseball team, dropping both games of a Saturday double header ended the Bulldogs season much earlier than CSM wanted to.

A day removed from an extra inning victory in Game One of the Northern California playoffs, the College of San Mateo baseball team looked to move onto the next round with a win in Game Two of the three game series against Cosumnes River College.

Cosumnes River College had other plans, defeating CSM in Game Two 8-4 and the winner take all Game Three 8-1 to eliminate CSM from the playoffs winning the series two games to one.

The Hawks of Cosumnes River will continue their trek through the playoffs next week opening up Round Two action.

Cosumnes River College is located in Sacramento.

"We're very disappointed," CSM coach Doug Williams said. "We didn't play up to our potential today. They're (Cosumnes College) a very good team. They got strong pitching performances in both games today and we didn't hit. Our bats went silent today."

The Bulldogs had plenty of bite early in Game One, jumping out to a three run lead in the first inning.

CSM sophomore Logan Freethy (Burlingame) opened the contest with a rocket shot single to right, followed by another single up the gut by CSM freshman Sean Wilson.

A Cosumnes River error scored Freethy, then a fielders choice pushed Wilson across giving CSM an early 2-0 lead.

Adam Chickman (Burlingame) blooped a single into shallow left field to keep the big inning going, two batters later Alex Gardner's suicide squeeze attempt worked to a tee scoring Chickman giving CSM a 3-0 advantage.

After recording the game winning RBI a night earlier, Bulldogs sophomore outfielder Bret Hart (Serra) was at it again, as the CSM No. 3 hitter cracked an RBI triple to the gap in right field scoring one to open up a nice 4-0 lead for the Bulldogs.

"The hardest part of today isn't losing the early lead we got in game one, its knowing that we could have beat them in all three games if we played up to our potential as a team," Hart said. "We made more mistakes than they did today. It's sad that my career here is over, I probably won't see a lot of these guys every again. This is a very close group, everyone in that dugout is like family to me."

Freshman Michael Andrick took the mound for the Bulldogs in Game One, navigating through trouble early, but control problems caught up to the Bulldogs right-hander as the Hawks fought their way back into Game One.

Cosumnes River got a solo homer in the third inning from Matthew Miraldi, the blast opened up four straight innings where the Hawks put runs on the board.

One run off a successful double steal in the fourth inning, followed up by two more runs in the fifth inning tied the game at 4-4 heading into the sixth inning.

"The team that wins the second game of a series has the momentum heading into the final game," Williams said. "Our bats shut down after the early going in Game One. Their pitcher was throwing four pitches for strikes making it very tough for our hitters."

Things went from bad to worse for the Bulldogs in the sixth inning when a delayed balk call was made against CSM reliever James Chamberlain.

Chamberlain attempted to pick off the runner at first base, but motioned initially towards an empty base before throwing towards first.

The delayed call enraged Coach Williams leading to his ejection in the sixth.

"My pitcher used a spaghetti move to try and get the moving off the bag at first," Williams said. "There was two outs, so the runner was going to be moving so we were trying to pick him off first. The balk call was a bad call, but I should have known better when I went out there to argue. That umpire has a quick trigger."

Williams watched the remainder of game one and all of game two from behind the fence, a feeling that the San Mateo skipper didn't enjoy very much.

"It was like getting a root canal," Williams said. "Having to watch your team battle in a playoff game after being in the dugout all season long isn't a good feeling."

Hawks freshman pitcher Ray Hernandez shook off the early defensive lapses by the defensive behind him to pitch a gem when his team needed it the most.

Throwing four different pitches in any count, including a knee buckling curve ball kept Bulldogs hitters scratching their heads all afternoon long. The Hawks added three more runs after the sixth inning, finishing game one on an 8-0 run to force a winner take all final game of the series 30 minutes after game one finished up.

Saving his teams season, Hernandez threw over 120 pitches during the complete game shutout win. Only two of the four runs was earned.

Sophomore lefty Derek Eaton took the ball in Game Two for CSM keeping the Hawks off the board during the first three innings of play.

Cosumnes River broke up the scoreless pitchers dual in the fourth inning with two runs, but the Bulldogs put one run right back on the scoreboard in their half of the frame.

Sophomore Tim Busbin (St. Francis) shot an RBI single to right field to make the score 2-1 after four innings of play.

Things began to unravel in the fifth inning, when the Hawks scored twice and then twice more in the sixth inning. Hits were hard to come back for CSM, leading to an 8-1 loss in Game Two and an early exit for the Northern California playoffs.

"This group accomplished a lot this season," Williams said. "The next couple of weeks these guys are really going to miss baseball a lot. We accomplished a huge goal winning the conference championship. We just ran into a good team the last couple of days."