The Coastal Dodgers ended their summer season with a 3-3 tie against Team Victory in the championship game of the Gold Coast Collegiate League on Wednesday at Russell Carr Field at Westmont.
The game was called due to darkness, and the two teams will share the title for the Gold Coast Collegiate League, an amateur wood-bat league that is made up of 12 teams.
The Dodgers team is made up of many local players who are either upperclassmen in high school or freshman/sophomores in college.
After Cole Schoenwetter, who is a San Marcos High pitching standout, got through a scoreless first inning, the Dodgers got out to an early 1-0 lead thanks to an RBI single off the bat of Liam Macdonald that scored Braden McCoy.
Jackson Cloud then took over for Schoenwetter on the mound and looked sharp early, tossing three scoreless innings as the Dodgers extended their lead to 2-0 in the third thanks to an error by Santa Clarita-based Team Victory.
However, Team Victory got to Cloud in the fifth, hitting him and fellow reliever Cooper Bagby for three runs to take the lead at 3-2. All three earned runs were attributed to Cloud, who struck out five batters in 3 ⅔ innings.
The Dodgers answered right back in the bottom half of the fifth, as Victor Heredia knocked an RBI single to score McCoy and tie the game at 3-3.
The remaining four innings were filled with dramatics, as Bagby and Heredia, who came in for relief, each were able to work out of jams with multiple runners on base. The most dramatic of those situations came in the top of the ninth inning when Heredia was able to strand the bases loaded with a strikeout.