The red-hot Bear Cubs are now two wins away from competing for a state championship.
Another sweep, another step closer to the state championship series for the top community college baseball team in California.
The Santa Rosa Junior College Bear Cubs routed Folsom Lake 11-2 on Saturday to advance out of the super regional round of the playoffs — and improve to 43-1 overall, having dropped just one game all year.
Up next is the California Community College Athletic Association’s Northern California championship series this coming weekend against Sierra.
Win that, and the Bear Cubs will be headed to Southern California for a shot at a state title.
Saturday’s victory — SRJC’s third of the week, after shutting out Delta in Thursday’s opener to set up the best-of-three series with Folsom — followed a narrow 5-4 win Friday.
Had SRJC lost Saturday’s 11 a.m. game, a series-deciding third game would have taken place in the afternoon. But the Bear Cubs made sure there was no need for that.
JT Summers led things at the plate for Santa Rosa with two hits and four RBIs, highlighted by a three-run home run in the fourth inning. Josh Martin continued his hot form with three hits and three RBIs, while Shane Moran went 1-for-3 with a two-run home run in the sixth.
Summers and Cooper Wood scored two runs apiece. Seven other Bear Cubs each scored one of the remaining runs.
On the mound, the trio of Evan Sandoval, Brice Cox and Luke Schat allowed just three hits across eight shutout innings of relief after Luke Dillon opened the game.
Schat struck out eight batters in his two innings to close it out, while Sandoval and Cox had one strikeout apiece in two and four innings, respectively.
“Baseball is a game where when you need to make outs and score runs — you need to take it,” SRJC head coach Damon Neidlinger said. “I think the early runs today and the toughness of the win yesterday, with them coming back, helped us get through … Sierra is tough and has as much depth as any team in the Big 8, so we’re going to need to play well.”
The top-seeded Bear Cubs now turn their attention to Sierra (31-13), the No. 5 seed that advanced out of the Feather River super regional round after putting up 43 runs across three games. The two teams faced off three times in the regular season, with the Bear Cubs winning all three contests.
As the higher seed, SRJC will host this coming week’s best-of-three series that begins Friday. Game time has not yet been set.
The winner of that series will head down south for the CCCAA state championship May 24-26 at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, in the Los Angeles region.
You can reach Staff Writer Kienan O’Doherty at 415-887-8650 or kienan.odoherty@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @kodoherty22.
