From Tuesday, March 15 to Friday, March 19, the COS baseball team played a three-game series against the Reedley College Tigers. The Giants would come out with the win after winning the last two games of the series, one on the road and one at home.

On the first game of the weekday set, the Giants played a home game in which they had lost in an intense 7-6 game. Although it was relatively high-scoring, it wasn’t necessarily offensively charged. Instead, this game was impacted by the tendency to give up one too many walks.

Starter Jake Tye would pitch only 2.1 innings on Tuesday while giving up three runs and two walks on four hits. Although his stat line isn’t a losing condition, the pitchers that would follow would continue the trend of allowing men on base.

After Cristian Garcia’s electric 3.2 innings in which he gave up only one hit and no runs on two strikeouts, Rider Hardman, Tyce Ochs, and J.T. Friesen would combine to give up five walks in the last three innings of the game. Overall, COS would walk seven batters on Tuesday.

In those last three innings, Reedley would score four runs. A potent COS offense wasn’t enough to come back at the end of the game, scoring only two in the 7th and 8th. Two Reedley runs in the top of the ninth were the killing blows that managed to topple the Giants.

However, despite the loss, there was plenty of offense from the home team that should be celebrated. Right fielder Jackson Brooks, second baseman Lee Trevino, third baseman Flavio Perez, and shortstop Elijah Munoz all knocked in at least two base hits, with Trevino adding three to his already impressive season total.

Flavio Perez would also bat in two runners, and join designated hitter Chase Gomez and Elijah Munoz who both also had one RBI (Runner Batted In), and two runs on the side of the Giants were unearned due in part to three errors from the Tigers defense.

Head Coach Jody Allen, who won his 700th game on the away game of the series, pointed out what exactly it was that brought this game so close, beyond just the numbers side of things.

“I think our two teams are similar, and when you have two similar teams going against each other you are going to get close games. When you look at the game on Tuesday, we walked a few too many guys, with four of our walks coming in to score, which we lessened with the next few games of the series,” Allen said.

During the away game on Thursday, March 18, another close matchup would see the Giants finish the day with an 8-6 win, and another game that heavily favored the offensive side of things.

Jackson Brooks, along with first baseman Elijah Cortez, Flavio Perez, and Elijah Munoz, all got multi-hit games on Thursday, with Flavio knocking in 4 base hits. Munoz would go on to bat in four runners on two doubles. Perez and Cortez would also tally on doubles for themselves, and Brooks would hit a triple, scoring two runs along the way.

For pitching, starter Riley Creech had a decent outing, but certainly not one he’d think of as being ideal. Through three innings, he gave up three earned runs on seven base hits, with both of them coming off home runs.

After Creech, Stephen Dean, Cristian Garcia, Anfurnee Murrieta, Rider Hartman, and J.T. Friesen would pitch the rest of the game, giving up only one more earned run along the way and allowing a total of six walks, one less than the game before.

In the end, it was enough for an 8-6 win that brought Jody Allen’s total win count as a coach up to 700, which came as a surprise to the COS legend.

“Honestly, I didn’t know anything about it,” Allen said.

In fact, Allen had to be reminded of his win count by one of his former colleagues, adding on,

“It was funny because one of my former coaches had texted me and said, ‘Congratulations on win #699, I hope you get 700’. I had no clue what the number was at.”

Allen also iterated that thinking about a milestone like that isn’t really something that goes on during a game scenario, saying,

“You just get in and you start going, you just want this team to be prepared and do a good job, the most important thing this week was winning the series and not my 700th win.”

His win count would only stay at 700 for so long though, because just two days later on March 19, he would increase that number by one more in a 5-3 victory to close out the series.

Elijah Munoz, Flavio Perez, Lee Trevino, and Jackson Brooks all got at least one RBI, with Munoz batting in two runners. Lee and Flavio also both knocked two base hits, and with Trevino’s two hits, he has hit safely in 15 of his last 16 games. Currently, he has the highest batting average on the roster at a cool .391.

For pitching, starter Tyce Ochs threw four scoreless innings, giving up no runs on three walks and two strikeouts. Julian Lopez would come in to follow, and after giving up one run in 2 innings, would be pulled for Cristian Garcia. Garcia didn’t have his best stuff on Saturday and gave up two earned runs on three hits.

Pitchers Rider Hartman and J.T. Friesen pitched the last two innings, securing the win for Hartman and the save for Friesen, which was his 6th of this year.

COS baseball won’t play another game until Tuesday, March 29, due to a bye week in the schedule. This not only gives the players a break but also gives some of them a chance to complete work that they maybe haven’t been able to in these last few weeks.

“We change things that we need to for every team that we coach here, it a good time for a break for this team because we have had a couple of guys that are hurt, and we’ll set up a practice schedule where our pitchers will get to pitchers to get on the mound to do more pitching than they may normally get, and get our hitters some more live at-bats,” Allen stated.

Make sure to keep up to date with all COS sports news, as well as all other kinds of news on our school news website, thecampusjournal.com.

Also, make sure to tune in to the Giant’s Sports Weekly hosted by Spencer Beair each week, where we give bite-sized reports of your favorite sports.