Baseball took the field this past weekend to start the 2016 season off against the club team from Colorado State University. The Trojans came away from the weekend with four wins and a great start to their 2016 campaign.
The weather on Saturday was perfect for baseball and the Trojans did not disappoint the gathered fans as they won both games of the doubleheader by scores of 10-4 and 8-6. Game one got off to a rocky start as the Trojans gave up a pair of runs in the first. TSJC responded in the bottom half of the inning with three runs to take the lead. Damian Rodriguez drove in the first run of the season with a single to center that plated Dan Jurney. A single and homerun in the top of the second gave the Rams the lead back at 4-3 which held until the fourth when Bronson Butcher drove a ball over the center field fence to tie it back up. Later that same inning, Alec Petterson would double and come around to score; the Trojans would never look back. Cam Baird threw six innings, allowing only two earned runs, to pick up his first win of the season.
Game two was the tightest of the weekend. The teams exchanged the lead until the fourth when the Trojans would plate a pair off of a triple by Rodriguez to go up 4-3. They added three in the fifth on RBI's from Phillip Underwood and Cruz Nevarez. CSU battled to the end, getting within a pair off of a Matt Smith blast into the lake at Central Park, but the comeback would fall short with reliever Caden Pratt slamming the door on the 8-6 win. Colin Pratt worked two innings in relief to pick up the win on the hill.
On Sunday afternoon the temperatures dropped but the Trojan bats heated up. TSJC put 32 runs on the board in the doubleheader, winning by scores of 15-3 and 17-0. Some notable stats included Andres Alvarez going three for four with four RBI's in the opener and in the second game Nevarez went three for three, scoring three times. James Smith and Dan Jurney picked up wins on the hill.
This weekend looks to be a much more difficult challenge for the Trojan squad as they travel to Thatcher, Arizona for a four game series with Eastern Arizona College (9-3). They will return for home games on Tuesday, February 23 against Luna College before hitting the road again for a four-game series against New Mexico JC (5-3) in Hobbs, New Mexico.