The Santa Barbara Foresters got back on track with an 8-6 victory over the Menlo Park Legends on Saturday at Eddie Mathews Field.
The ‘Sters (16-3), who had lost back-to-back games heading into Saturday’s matchup, will have a rematch with the Legends on Sunday back at Eddie Mathews Field at 2 p.m.
After Menlo Park opened the scoring with a bases-loaded walk in the top of the first, Santa Barbara evened the score back at 1-1 in the bottom half courtesy of an Addison Klepsch (UC San Diego) RBI sacrifice fly.
AJ Krodel (UCSB) then tossed a scoreless top of the second to set the stage for the Foresters to grab their first lead of the day, thanks to a Menlo Park error and a run-scoring groundout by Marcus Gries (TCU) to make it 3-1.
The Legends brought the score even once again in the top of the third with a two-run home run, but the back-and-forth continued in the bottom half as Nick Salmon (Oregon State) drove in a run on a groundout and another Menlo Park error gave the Foresters a 5-3 lead.
The sloppy defensive play by the Legends continued into the fourth inning, as an error by their catcher allowed another Santa Barbara run to come across and grow the lead to 6-3.
The ‘Sters gave one run back in the top of the sixth on an error of their own, but their bats got it right back to bring the lead to 7-3 in the bottom half on an RBI double by Brady Janusek (Baylor).
The Legend made a late push with one run in both the eighth and ninth innings, but another Santa Barbara run came in to score in the eighth on another error to add some insurance and eventually secure the win.
Janusek and Salmon paced the Forester offense with two hits apiece, while Gries came around to score two runs.