The Santa Barbara Foresters continued to roll with a 6-2 win over their rival San Luis Obispo Blues on Sunday at Sinsheimer Stadium in San Luis Obispo.
Sunday’s win marked Santa Barbara’s ninth consecutive win and longtime manager Bill Pintard’s 1,200th victory at the helm of the Foresters (13-1).
After two scoreless innings to begin the game, the ‘Sters jumped out in front in the top of the third thanks to a San Luis Obispo error and an RBI single off the bat of Sawyer Farr (Texas A&M) to go up 2-0.
Tanner Grove (Cal) then finished off his three shutout innings for Santa Barbara, and the Forester offense stayed hot in the fourth with run-scoring base hits by Wylan Nelson (SBCC) and Chris Newstrom (Tennessee) to double it to a 4-0 lead.
However, the Blues got those two runs right back in the bottom of the fourth and cut the deficit in half on two RBI singles of their own.
The back-and-forth continued in the top of the fifth when the ‘Sters grew their lead to 5-2 on an RBI double by Marcus Gries (TCU) to score Christian Turner (Arkansas).
Santa Barbara’s Will Jordan (Texas Tech) then fired a scoreless fifth before handing the ball to Luke Cornelison (Arkansas), who struck out six batters across three shutout innings of work.
Meanwhile, the Foresters rounded out the scoring in the top of the eighth when Farr came in to score on a San Luis Obispo error to make it a 6-2 advantage.
Cornelison handed the ball to Lucien Wechsberg (Pepperdine) in the ninth, who slammed the door on the Blues to secure the win.
The Foresters will return home to take on the MLB Academy Barons on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at Eddie Mathews Field.