The Santa Barbara Foresters put their wheels in motion and ran away with 6-2 win over the Walnut Creek Crawdads on Saturday at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
Down 2-1, the Foresters scored two runs and took the lead for good in the sixth inning without the benefit of a hit, capitalizing on four walks. The runs scored when Lex Kaplan and Troy Conyers raced home from second and third base after a wild pitch from Crawdad reliever Matt Fowler.
The following inning Santa Barbara struck again with back-to-back doubles from John Holland and Kaplan to tally another run. Kaplan then stole third base and came across to score on a passed ball.
Granger Studdard followed with a walk and a steal and was brought home by Tyler Neslony’s RBI single to left field to make it 6-2.
Santa Barbara native Johnny Brontsema put the Foresters on the board with an RBI double off starting pitcher Austin Kost in the third inning. Dylan Paul scored the run.
Foresters starter Glen Otto was solid in his five innings of work. He struck out eight.
The Crawdads responded in the top of the 6th off reliever Cody Crouse. They got back-to-back hits from Dylan Alexander and Andy Bowman to bring in Michael Hoard to knot things up at 1-1. Nick Oar gave the Crawdads the 2-1 lead with a double off the wall in left to score Alexander.
The 6-6 Crouse settled down and threw one more inning to earn the win. Troy Cruz,came into close things out for Santa Barbara in the 9th, making quick work of Walnut Creek by striking out the side.
Neslony continued to stay hot with the bat for the Foresters, putting up another multi-hit day (2-4) with an RBI.
“We don’t have a ton of overpowering guys at the plate this year so what we’re teaching our players is to not do too much, be patient, and take pitches the other way,” said hitting coach Dmitri Young. “Our players have the freedom to experiment with a lot of different things at the plate and they’ve been successful.”
