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Coso splits with Desert, remains in first: Coyotes lose 4-1, win 4-1 in doubleheader

By Kyle Kensing, Sports Editor, The Daily Independent

Adam Garner delivers a pitch in a game against San Bernardino Valley earlier this season. Garner took the loss in Saturday’s game at Desert, but CCCC recovered in the second game. Coso leads Chaffey by a half-game in the conference. Daily Independent Photo By Mike Delaney

“Do or die” is how Cerro Coso head coach Dick Adams described the second half of Saturday’s doubleheader at College of the Desert.

“We can’t afford to lose two out of three to anybody,” he said.

And while the Foothill Conference season may be in its early stages, the second game Saturday was the difference between first and second place.

After dropping the day’s first game, the Coyotes (14-14, 10-2 Foothill Conference) responded with a 4-1 win to take the series behind a strong effort from pitcher Aaron Keplinger.

He went 8 1/3 innings, giving up just one run on four hits, and held the Marauders scoreless through eight innings.

“He had a great approach,” Adams said.

His approach was quite necessary in a contest that was tight throughout.

Neither team could scratch across a run, until the fifth inning. Andrew Masojc hit a lead-off double, followed by Cameron White advancing on a beam ball.

Dusty Romero got aboard on a would-be sacrifice bunt. With the bases loaded and no outs, Andrew Hill drove in Masojc on a sac fly.

It would however be Coso’s lone run of the inning.

“We were like a lawnmower that couldn’t jumpstart,” Adams said of his team’s offense.

The CCCC coach added that he “credits Desert’s pitching” for the low run production.

The Coyotes next scored in the seventh, when Masojc reached third on an error, steal, and sac bunt. Romero hit into a fielder’s choice, which brought home the third baseman.

The Coyotes struck for two more runs in the ninth, giving Keplinger, as Adams put it, “breathing room.”

Coso’s final two scores came on back-to-back squeeze plays, with Zack Wilson and Mark Sayas laying down the scoring bunts.

Desert came through for one run in the bottom of the ninth, but the combined relief efforts of Kade McAllister and Felice Cammisuli preserved the win. Cammisuli was credited for his fifth save on the year.

In Saturday’s opening game, the aforementioned inability to score with runners on base caused problems for the Coyotes.

Coso had base runners with no outs in the first inning, but a pick-off play and throw-out on an attempted steal shut down the offense.

Adams said that set the tone for the rest of the game. His Coyotes managed just seven hits — five of them in the first and seventh innings — and scored its lone run in the seventh in the 4-1 loss.

Adam Garner gave up all four runs in the first and second innings before he “settled down to take care of business” the rest of the way.

The loss was his first in his last five appearances.

Sayas had Coso’s lone RBI of the game. He batted 2-4.

Despite the loss, CCCC remains in first place in the Foothill Conference, half-a-game ahead of Chaffey.

The Dawgs’ start a three-game set with Rio Hondo Thursday on the road, and return to the Dawg Yard Saturday for a doubleheader at noon.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006