It's that time of the year Coso fans, the Coyote baseball season is back. Cerro Coso kicked off their home campaign in the right way by taking the 15-13 victory over the Rio Hondo Roadrunners. In wet and cold conditions, the Coyotes held off a trying Roadrunner ballclub to even their season at 1-1.
Jordan Boman got the call to start this game for the Yotes', however, after walking his first couple batters and giving up 2 runs in the first, things got off to a rocky start. After a couple pitching changes, Luis De Los Santos got the call from the bullpen to keep the Roadrunners at bay. He did just that pitching 4.1 innings only allowing 2 hits and 2 runs while striking out 4.
This performance by De Los Santos allowed the Coyote bats to get hot and mount the comeback victory. The Yotes totaled 19 hits on the day with multiple Yote batters having multi-hit performances. Notable batters of the day were FR Isaac Martinez, SO Kyle Phin, FR Andrew Bain, FR Deri Couture, and SO Jordan Boman. While the pitching staff was holding the Roadrunners offense to minimum damage, the Yotes were able to put up 3 runs in the first, 5 in the third, and 2 in the fifth. All of this led up to the eighth inning when the Coyotes would look to roll all of this momentum.
Coming off of a spectacular 2 inning, 1 hit performance by SO Brandon Donahue, the offense knew it was time to put this game in the books. Going into the 8th it was a 10-12 ballgame and the Yote bats stood up to the challenge. Isaac Martinez smokes a single to the opposite field scoring Deri Couture and tying the game at 12. This put runners on the corners with SO and starting pitcher Jordan Boman coming to the plate. The Roadrunners made a pitching change to keep the power hitter off his rhythm but that did not stop him from delivering a line drive three run homer over the left field fence. This put the Coyotes up 15-12 and allowed Cayden Johnson to come into the game in his first closing appearance and shut the door on the Roadrunners.
The win came with multiple momentum shifts, some miscues, but ultimately a combination between great offensive output and the pitching staff shutting the visiting offense down when they needed to. The Coyotes are looking forward to an exciting season and will return home to face Southwestern College on Friday and Saturday, 1/31 and 2/1.