The Gavilan College baseball team took the diamond for its season debut with a three-game set against visiting College of the Siskiyous on Friday and Saturday and took two out of the three tilts.
“It was a pretty productive weekend for us,” Rams manager Neal Andrade said. “Definitely a good start.”
Anchored on the hill by Chris Bradley, who has already signed to play for New Mexico State next season, the Rams defeated the Eagles 6-1 in Game one of a Friday doubleheader. Bradley allowed just two hits and struck out 13 in seven innings of work.
He was helped by 13 Gavilan hits – two apiece from Tim Andrade, Steve Cabral, Denny Hall, Johnny Cox, and Colby Lee. Hall and Brian Bradley had three and two RBIs, respectively. Gavilan struck for four runs in the first and added solo tallies in the fourth and sixth innings.
“Game 1 was a pretty clean ball game for us,” Andrade said.
An offensively skewed Game 2 went to the Eagles 9-8. The two squads combined for 29 hits (16 for Gavilan) and six errors. Cal Tashiro and Hall led the way with three hits each for the Rams.
Despite allowing five runs in the top of the ninth, the Rams held on to take the series finale 7-6 on Saturday.
Shea Adams worked eight frames on the mound to earn the win. He struck out eight and allowed one run.
The Rams again reached double digits in hits, banging out 12 this time around. Hall delivered four hits, to push is weekend total to nine, and Tyler Oertle and Julio Cortez poked two hits each. Paul Elschens contributed three RBIs. Over the three games, the Rams collected 41 hits.
Gavilan is due back in action Thursday at West Hills to kick off a three-game series. The final two contests will be at Gavilan on Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
