The College of the Redwoods baseball team saw their season come to a close on Friday, grabbing a 3-1 win on the road against Butte College to wrap up their 2025 campaign with a 12-22.
Even with the losing record, the first season under Redwoods head coach John Downey ended with some positive momentum, as the Redwoods won six of their last eight games. In the last eight games, College of the Redwoods saw its pitching staff find more success and it did so by finding the strike zone.
Friday’s winning pitcher, freshman Drew Franklin, is a prime example of that, filling up the strike zone en route to his complete game win. Franklin went a full nine innings, allowed just one run and he did so without recording a strikeout. Franklin, the former Fortuna Husky, trusted his defense and walked only one batter while going the distance in the season finale.
“He just goes up there and he throws strikes,” Downey said of Franklin. “He’s kind of earned the name Bulldog from the pitching staff and it shows.”
Franklin moved to 3-4 on the season with the win, while lowering his earned run average to 5.86.
“All 27 outs got out by the defense. He’s throwing where he was told to throw it and he’s getting outs,” Downey said. “Any pitcher at any level, the most important thing that we want to see is guys that can go in there and control the strike zone.”
CR got just enough run support, scoring twice in the second inning thanks to a Butte error and then an RBI single by freshman Kurtis Jackson before sophomore Oscar Rudman singled in freshman Jack Irvine in the fifth inning.
While Franklin impressed on the mound on Friday in the win, sophomore Seth Grammer made some program history at the plate in Thursday’s 13-7 loss, slugging his eighth home run of the year, which ties the College of the Redwoods single-season record. Grammer’s former teammate, Blake Browning, set the record for CR last year and now Grammer adds his name to the top of the list.
“It’s been really fun to watch. We knew Grammer could do it,” Downey said. “We’re very excited he got to be able to do that.”
Grammer, a former Eureka Logger, ends his sophomore season with a .300 batting average and drove in 28 runs, while scoring 28 runs himself to go along with the eight home runs.
Even with the sub-.500 record, Downey believes that the hot stretch to end the season is a sign of things to come in the program.
“I told the guys that I was extremely thrilled with the way that they finished,” Downey said. “Each game was different, but each game the guys were consistent and the guys were energized and the guys believed.”
Another thing that stood out for CR was the amount of production they got from former H-DNL players. Franklin and Grammer were the stars this week, there’s local players up and down the Redwoods lineup.
“It’s exactly what we want. We couldn’t have asked for anything better and it’s just going to build with more and more coming,” Downey said. “The Humboldt guys are what drives us, it’s the core, it’s the heartbeat of this program and the heartbeat of this community here at CR.”
Dylan McNeill can be reached at 707-441-0526.
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