The College of the Redwoods baseball team began their Golden Valley Conference season this past weekend in Eureka, dropping a series to Lassen College to begin conference action.
CR began the series with a doubleheader on Friday, where Corsairs’ sophomore pitcher whirled a gem, going seven innings, striking out seven and allowing just a single run.
“Every single day, from his pre-hab, to his rehab, to his weight room routines all the way to his plays,” Corsairs’ head coach John Downey said of Oliver. “Every single thing about his game in the preparation phase, all the way to the execution phase on the mound, it’s just professional.”
Oliver has been great so far this season for CR, leading the team with 25 innings pitched, while owning an earned run average of 3.24 and having gone 3-1 through his first five starts of the season.
“This whole year, he just goes out there and does his job,” Downey said. “Against a good Lassen squad too, that’s really good for us to see and he’ll continue to do that all year long for us.”
Lassen pushed the one run across in the first inning before Oliver got settled in and led the Corsairs to the 6-1 win. CR answer in the bottom half of the first inning with sophomore outfielder Oscar Rudman singling in a run before sophomore infielder Seth Grammer doubled in two more runs to take a 3-1 lead.
The lead grew larger in the second inning with an RBI double by sophomore infielder Solomon Searle before a pair of solo home runs by Grammer and sophomore infielder Justin Powell in the fifth and sixth innings to close out the scoring. Sophomore pitcher Brock Lenhardt pitched the final two innings for CR in the win, striking out two while not allowing a baserunner to close out the game.
Things wouldn’t go as well for the Corsairs for the remainder of the series, dropping the second game of Friday’s doubleheader 15-3. Lassen jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the second inning, knocking out Corsairs starting pitcher sophomore Chance Sorenson after recording only five outs.
“We left too many pitches over the middle,” Downey said. “Especially with a good-hitting team like Lassen, they’re going to do damage with pitches over the middle.”
Grammer hit another solo shot in game two but it was not close to enough for the Corsairs in the 12-run loss. CR lost game three on Saturday 7-2 with Lassen scoring the game’s final five runs to secure the series win.
“We gave up a couple runs on some miscues defensively but ultimately, kind of like football,” Downey said. “The team that makes the least amount of mistakes is going to end up winning the game.”
Lenhardt got the start and went 5.1 innings while allowing four earned runs but the Corsairs offense wasn’t able to get him off the hook, with CR striking out 16 times at the plate in the game.
“We tell them all the time, the first two strikes are for you and that third one is for the team,” Downey said. “You want to have a plan and execute the plan but once it gets to two strikes, you really need to an even harder focus on certain things. Maybe it’s reading a tendency from a pitcher, we keep track of those things, really just trying to get in there and battle. It’s a mentality more than anything.”
With the series loss, CR is now 4-8 on the season and will have to try to turn that around on the road this week. The Corsairs will hit the road for their GVC action this weekend, with a series against Feather River that begins Friday with a doubleheader before the series finale on Saturday.
“From the fall all the way till now has been a really long ride for these guys and they’ve worked really hard. It is kind of crazy that we’re already here in conference,” Downey said. “We’re right there, we really are. It’s going to take one or two things to get cleaned up.”
Dylan McNeill can be reached at 707-441-0526.
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