After taking three of four over the weekend against Walla Walla, the Centralia College baseball team got right back to the grindstone Wednesday for two more games, splitting a midweek doubleheader against Yakima Valley with a 10-5 win and a 4-1 loss.
“Everyone’s tired,” CC coach Ben Harley said. “This is a true test of how deep we are as a group, which is good. It’s good for the program to see where we’re at.”
The Blazers put their best foot forward early in the afternoon at the plate, putting runs up on the board in each of the first three innings of Game 1, capped by a decisive four-spot in the third.
Six Blazers combined to crack out 10 hits, and six drove in runs, led by Casen Taggart and Zaia Acklus, who both left the yard.
Early on, though, Centralia let Yakima Valley do most of the work for it. In the bottom of the first, the Blazers loaded up the bases on walks, before Tyler Harries brought a run in on a sacrifice fly. The next inning, River Terry scored on a passed ball, and the big frame began with a single and two walks, before Casen Taggart came in on another ball passed the catcher.
“We hit the ball really well,” Harley said. “They walked quite a few guys, and we capitalized really well, which was nice.”
On the bump, freshman Hunter Stewart earned his first career win, going five innings, striking out four, and allowing three runs on two hits and three walks.
“He did well in his first college start,” Harley said. “Came out and competed, which is awesome.”
Game 2 saw an even better pitching performance, though a quiet outing at the plate saw it go for naught. Redshirt Nick Geersten took his third start of the season by the horns and unleashed a barrage of funky stuff, working into the eighth inning and striking out 11 Yaks in a 114-pitch outing, which saw very little go straight.
He threw two fastballs, I believe,” Harley said. “Changeups and sliders and breaking balls. Zero walks, zero hit-by-pitches. He just goes straight at guys.”
Geersten’s only true mistake came to start the game, when he hung a two-strike offspeed pitch to Spencer Shipman, who deposited over the left-field wall to put the Yaks up immediately. From there, Geersten gave up little in the way of hard contact, but he had to work around challenges behind him.
Yakima Valley would take its 1-0 lead into the sixth inning, when Geersten got two easy outs before an error in the infield behind him gave the Yaks a baserunner. That runner stole second and was safe on a mishandled throw down, setting him up to come home on a double.
Two innings later, Yakima got a runner to second with two outs, and Geersten rolled a routine grounder that should have ended the inning, but it was thrown away, letting a run come home. The very next batter drove in another run with another double, ending Geersten’s night with four runs to his name — though only the first was earned.
“We definitely have to learn how to win in those pressure situations, and how to finish a game, play a whole 18 innings in a day, which is hard when you’re young,” Harley said.
On the other side, Yakima Valley’s Carson Judd was just as good on the hill, striking out eight in six hitless innings. Centralia scratched out a run on a walk, a sacrifice bunt, a wild pitch, and an RBI groundout, but that would be the entirety of the offense.
“That’s definitely a guy who’s going to play at the next level, at a four-year school,” Harley said. “He was solid.”
Tony Groninger got Centralia’s first hit of the game in the bottom of the eighth off of the Yakima Valley bullpen, and Taggart added a knock in the ninth.
Centralia will be back in action this weekend, hosting Shoreline in a doubleheader Saturday before hitting the road Sunday to take on the Dolphins for two more.
