It almost had to be that way.
The Casa Grande baseball team ended the first half of the league race the same way they played every other league game, by winning a one run game. This one was over second place Montgomery 1-0 to take a two game lead in the NBL race.
Dominic Garihan pitched into the seventh inning, giving up three hits and striking out six to pick up his third win of the season. Eric Parnow came into get the last two outs to pick up his third save of the season.
To show you how pitching rich Casa Grande is, two pitchers have more wins than Garihan even though he has given up two earned runs in over 31 innings.
One of the pitchers is Anthony Bender who is 5-0. He was the hitting hero in this game by hitting a one out double in the third, which brought in the game’s only run. Casa Grande played textbook baseball to get that run. Francis Christy singled, was bunt to second by Richard Lile and came home on the Bender hit.
Casa Grande now has a sixteen game winning streak. Eleven of them have been by one run, including the seven straight in league play. It was the second one by a 1-0 score.
All three games played in the NBL on Wednesday were one run games, so now the count is twenty eight league games, sixteen decided by one run.
No. 4 Rancho Cotate is tied for second with Montgomery two games back. Cardinal Newman and Maria Carrillo are tied for fourth, three games back. One of the one run game on Wednesday was Maria Carrillo defeating Cardinal Newman 3-2 in a game that all the scoring was in the third inning.
The other one run game was Ukiah edging Santa Rosa 4-3. It was Ukiah’s first league win of the season.
The second half starts on Friday with No. 1 Casa Grande hosting Maria Carrillo and No. 3 Montgomery traveling to Cardinal Newman.
THE RUN
The numbers used in the Sunday post figuring out who would win a Track and Field meet between the local schools by using the best of the season in each event has changed in at least one event.
The anticipated showdown in the 1600 Girls Meter race didn’t disappoint. Going into the race Sophomore Andrea Natoli of Maria Carrillo had the best time, with freshman Delaney White of Santa Rosa in second. The standard was 5:23.41 going in.
White’s kick in the last lap gave her a three second win in a time of 5:20.31. Natoli led most of the race before falling back to third. Coming up to get second was Saskia Van Ommeren-Egberts of Casa Grande who is a freshman.
So that is the first of many matchups between the three.
GETTING CLOSE
The SRJC Baseball team run for the Big 8 championship continues when they host San Joaquin Delta in the second game of a three game series Thursday afternoon.
SRJC, who is still ranked No. 1 in the state, has a two game lead with five to go. San Joaquin Delta, who won the opening game of the series with an 11 inning 8-7 win, is third place four games out. The only way San Joaquin Delta wins league is if they win out and SRJC losses out. San Joaquin Delta is ranked No. 9 in the state.
In between those two is No. 5 Sierra. They continue its three game series at American River.
Both SRJC and Sierra open the series with a loss on Tuesday. The loss snapped a five game SRJC winning streak.
RACE ON
With the Rancho Cotate loss on Tuesday, they are in even in the loss column with Maria Carrillo in the NBL softball race.
No. 3 Rancho Cotate host No. 4 Windsor who is one game behind after a 2-0 loss to Ukiah on Tuesday. That was Ukiah’s first league win.
It is the third game in three days for Rancho Cotate who defeated Montgomery 12-1 on Wednesday in a make-up game to move to 5-1 in league play.
Maria Carrillo, who is 4-1, host Cardinal Newman.
Casa Grande also has two losses and host Montgomery.
My email address is jacpasquini@comcast.net