James McCallum went 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI to help lead Taft College to a 9-4 Central Valley Conference win at West Hills College Coalinga to open a three-game series on Tuesday.
The surging Cougars won their seventh straight to improve to 15-10 overall and 8-2 in Central Valley Conference play. The series resumes on Thursday (Mar. 28) in Taft at 2 p.m. with the finale set for Saturday (Mar. 30) back in Coalinga, also at 2 p.m.
On Tuesday, Taft greeted West Hills starting pitcher Hank Chen by scoring two runs in the top of the first inning and three more in the second. The five early runs would prove to be all the Cougars would need, but they added single runs in the fourth, sixth, seventh, and ninth innings.
McCallum started and finished the scoring for Taft. His RBI single in the first drove in Buster Hardman with the Cougars' opening run of the ball game. And in the ninth, McCallum brought home Kenji McCarthy for Taft final run.
In between, Keegan Vialpando smacked a RBI double, Andres Rolon hit a RBI triple, while the Cougars took advantage of three errors and a pair of passed balls to score.
Cedric Corrales improved to 4-0 on the season with the win. He went seven innings, allowing four runs and four hits with eight strikeouts. Manny Guzman and Greyson Barrett were also excellent in relief, as they closed out the contest with scoreless innings of relief.