The Santa Barbara Foresters put the cherry on top of a stellar regular season with a 9-2 rivalry win over the San Luis Obispo Blues on Sunday at Eddie Mathews Field.
The Foresters end the regular season with a record of 26-6, earning the California Collegiate League South Division title. They were firing on all cylinders throughout the summer, finishing first in the league in several categories.
“It’s been a great summer,” Santa Barbara manager Bill Pintard said. “Last year we hit six home runs, and we were a good team. This year, we hit 22. We led the league in batting average, we led the league in earned run average and we led the league in stolen bases.”
“We started right from the beginning (on offense). We were able to establish the way we play. We steal bases. We go first to third, we press, and we rolled all summer.”
Their season is far from over, as the Foresters will now head to Wichita, Kansas for the NBC World Series. Santa Barbara will begin its quest for its 11th title on Friday, with all games streamed on the NBC World Series YouTube channel.
“I think we’re feeling amazing; we’re a pretty tight group, and we do everything together,” Forester and SBCC standout Wylan Nelson said of the team heading into the World Series. “There’s a lot of love, and everyone kind of came together really quick, even with guys coming in late in the season.
“We just got an awesome group and a great coaching staff, and we just have to go out there and play ‘Ster baseball.”
After Santa Barbara starter Brody Berlowitz (Central Oklahoma) opened the game with a 1-2-3 frame, the Forester offense got right to work.
Donovan Lasalle (Louisiana) led off the bottom half of the first with a double and came in to score thanks to a pair of wild pitches for the early 1-0 lead.
After a Nick Salmon (Oregon State) walk, Josh Woodworth (Pepperdine) kept the rally going with an RBI single through the left side of the infield to double the lead.
However, the scoring ended there as the next three batters were retired in order to strand a pair of baserunners. The Blues then answered with a run of their own in the second courtesy of two doubles, the RBI coming from Kosei Suzuki, to make it a 2-1 Santa Barbara lead.
That score held until the top of the fifth inning, when SLO manufactured the game-tying run. After leading off with a walk, Kevin Spear advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt and moved to third on a flyout to right.
Dominick Najar then drove in Spear with a two-out base hit up the middle to even the score at 2-2.
The Forester bats woke back up in the bottom of the fifth, beginning with back-to-back singles from Salmon and Woodworth to begin the frame.
After a sacrifice bunt, an intentional walk and a flyout, Nelson came through with two outs with a hard-hit single up the middle to bring two runs home and regain the lead at 4-2.
“I’m just trying to shorten up; I had two strikes,” Nelson said of his go-ahead hit. “Just trying to get something over the middle of the plate, and just shoot it right back up the middle, and that’s what I did.
“I wasn’t really feeling the pressure or anything; I knew I was going to come through and just do my thing.”
The ‘Sters then turned the ball over to Carter Speights (UC Davis), who responded by firing two shutout innings to preserve the two-run lead.
Nelson stepped to the plate in the bottom of the seventh and gave his team some more insurance, blasting a line-drive home run over the right-field wall to extend the lead to 5-2.
“I think I was the 7th batter that [SLO pitcher Joseph Gamber] had faced, and all six guys in front of me, the first pitches were fastballs,” Nelson said. “I knew it was coming. He blew the first one by me, and then I just got on time and hit it out of there.
“It felt good off the bat, and I knew pretty much that it was gone. It was a good feeling.”
Speights turned in a 1-2-3 top of the eighth to continue his strong outing, and the SB offense responded by blowing the game wide open.
“[Speights] had been struggling, but he was really good today,” Pintard said. “He was tipping his pitches a little bit, but they knew his pitches and still couldn’t hit it.”
The first two runs of the inning came thanks to SLO defensive blunders, as a wild pitch and an overthrown ball allowed the Foresters to extend their lead to 7-2.
Makanni Nabarro (Hawaii) then provided the biggest blow of the inning, roping a two-run double to the right-field wall to bring the lead to 9-2 heading into the ninth.
Jack Fowler (Pepperdine) took over for the ninth and worked around two singles to begin the inning, inducing a double play and getting a strikeout to finish off the regular season with a win.
