April 20, 2017
By Kaivon Kealoha
W 11-8
Taft Hosted game two of the three game set against West Hills College on Thursday at Cougar Field. Offensively, Taft continued to barrel up the baseball quite well enroute to a slugfest 11-8 victory. Every Cougar starter collected at least one hit; with exception to Dominic Tating, who reached three times on three walks.
West Hills struck first when Falcons leadoff hitter, Trent Bollman stole home with 2 outs in the first inning, and a single by Alante Uribe scored a run.
However Taft was quick to answer when Richard Ortiz doubled to score Nick Kawano, and Travis Turner singled to score Ortiz.
In the second inning, West Hills struck for three more runs to knock out the Cougar starter and Falcon starter, Chad Gotto seemed to settle down. However Taft tied the game at 5 in the third and fourth innings. Jayce Gardner singled to score Dayton Wilson in the third. In the fourth, Ortiz doubled once more to score Kawano again, then Turner grounded out to the shortstop to score Ortiz.
Taft put the game away when they struck for two in the fifth, three in the sixth, and one in the eighth.
Nick Kawano hit a triple that turned into a home run in the fifth when he smashed a ball over the left fielders head, and when the relay to home in an attempt to throw out Gardner was over thrown, Kawano scored.
Ortiz hit home run number nine on the season in the sixth inning when a 1-2 curve ball was hung, and blasted far over the left field wall.
Brendan Halstrom scored on a wild pitch, and Wilson singled in Luke Lubiniecki for Taft's eleventh run of the game.
Tyson Canfield got the win on the bump, pitching 6.2 innings out of the bullpen and allowing 3 runs on 5 hits, while striking out 3.
Chase Nistor got his fourth save of the season by retiring one batter in the ninth inning.
Taft College is now 17-18-1 overall, and 8-9 in CVC play. The Cougars look to sweep West Hills in Coalinga on Saturday April 22, at 2:00 pm.