The Santa Barbara Foresters couldn’t deliver the clutch hits and suffered a 2-1 loss to the Santa Paula Halos in a California Collegiate League game in Santa Paula on Friday.
The Foresters fell to 10-3 overall and 3-3 in the CCL.
Santa Barbara jumped out early, scoring a run in the first inning as Steven Reveles and Louie Lechich walked and moved up 90 feet on a one-out wild pitch. Ryan O’Hearn ripped a fly ball to center, deep enough to score Reveles on a sacrifice fly.
Drew Van Orden opened the game with a strikeout and continued his dominance from there. Through two innings, Van Orden threw only 15 pitches with one going outside the strike zone. In total, the Duke righty finished the game with five innings pitched and struck out four while not factoring into the final decision.
In the second, Colt Atwood led off the inning with a bunt to Halo second baseman Jared Patterson, who fielded the ball and had no play on a throw. Atwood immediately stole second and moved to third on a Reveles groundout. However, the Foresters struggles with men in scoring position continued as Atwood would be stranded at third.
The Halos scored in the fifth after Halo right fielder Nicholas Murphy doubled and came around to score on a groundout. They added another in the eighth after Halo second baseman Jared Paterson came around to score. Paterson reached on an infield single and went to second on an error by Keaton Jones, who threw the ball away on the play. After moving to third on a groundout, he scored the eventual winning run on a single by catcher Collin Yelich.
Santa Barbara had chances late to push runs across, but fell short. Atwood attempted to tag up from third on a Reveles fly out in the eighth, but was thrown out at the plate by Murphy. In the ninth, Ben Johnson sat at third with two outs, but Jones’ groundout could not get through the hole at second and short as the game ended.
