Napa Valley College’s offensive onslaught, Anderson’s good start push them past Laney
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Talk about putting an exclamation point on your final home game of the season!
That’s what the Napa Valley College baseball team did with their 10-4 dispatching of Laney-Oakland.
The Storm (9-18 overall, 8-12 Bay Valley Conference) set the tone early by scoring five runs in the bottom of the first. Trent Davis walked and then came home when Stefan Reath grounded into a fielder’s choice. Tyler Peters reached by way of a walk and later scored on a Clayton Espino single. Reath then came home on a sacrifice fly by Antonio Diaz. Hunter Leavitt walked and scored along with Espino on a single by Noah Wallen.
“It feels amazing,” said Espino of the offensive onslaught. “We just knew we could do this all year, and we have the guys to do it and we’re blessed with a bunch of great guys.”
“It really helps me have the ability to throw what I want, and I can try different things to keep runners on and all that good stuff,” Napa Valley College starter Drew Anderson said of the early run support.
Napa Valley added another run when Wallen tripled and came home on a sacrifice fly by Davis in the third.
In the fourth the Storm tallied yet another run Carter Pennington reached on an error and then scored on a Reath double.
The Storm scored once more in the fifth when Joseph Bogdan roped a solo homer over the fence in left-center.
NVC scored their final runs of the day in the seventh inning. Leavitt reached by way of a single and later came home on a Peters single. Bogdan singled and later scored on a Pennington sacrifice fly.
Laney (18-16-1, 11-8 BVC) scored once in the fifth and sixth innings, and then scored twice in the eighth.
Anderson got the win for Napa. He went six innings, walked two, and struck out two. He gave up two runs, one of which was earned.
“Really the fastball, I was able to command it really well,” Anderson said of his start. “My offspeed wasn’t really on today, but I was able to come back and throw strikes.”
“Drew’s good,” Napa Valley College coach Dan Parker said of his freshman starter. “Drew can pitch. When you go out and you don’t have your best stuff you’ve got be able to compete like he did, so he went out with a fastball and found a way to keep us in the game.”
“He was awesome today,” Espino said of Anderson. “He did awesome. Drew’s a good guy. His arm was hurting yesterday, and he was able to bounce back today, so it was awesome for him.”
The two teams will meet up again Friday at 2:30 p.m. in Oakland.
