The Bakersfield College baseball team opened the season with a 4-3 record with its most recent win, coming against Golden West College, 10-4. The game was a part of the College of Sequoias tournament that began Feb. 10.
Golden West led the game early, but the Renegades got their offense going in the middle of the game as they scored seven runs throughout the rest of the game giving them a comfortable lead. Sophomore Riley Showers had three RBI in the game on just two hits. David Pennington also brought a home run for the Renegades.
“This past weekend, we had three of our sophomore players really step up and carry a big load. Riley Showers had an outstanding weekend. He’s somebody we look to. He’s been here and has some experience,” said head coach Tim Painton.
“David Pennington is playing with injuries. He’s not even playing defense right now, but offensively he’s been able to hit from the DH spot where he’s provided the offense,” Painton continued. “He has a leg problem that’s been kind of nagging. He played through it at times opening weekend, he’s being treated for it. So what we’re able to get out of him are about three at-bats a game, then we have to pinch-run for him late in the game if it’s close.
“He’s the one player we have that played every day last year and has been through it so we’re hoping to get him healthy this week.
“But those guys got going a bit in the second week of the season.”
Painton also spoke about freshman Philip Valos, who pitched four innings of relief in the game.
“He’s a young man that should have great command of pitches and he didn’t show that the first weekend. He walked people, got behind in counts, but against Golden West, he was able to come in and throw scoreless innings of relief and didn’t walk anybody. And that was a major step for him and us because that’s what he’s going to be expected to do.”
The Renegades previously lost two-of-three games to Marin, 6-5, and Allan Hancock 4-3, and picked up the shutout win against Hartnell, 6-0.
Before those games, BC went 2-1, losing by 13 during the opening game of their home tournament. The Renegades bounced back in the final two of the home stand against Golden West 4-2 and then held off Moorpark 12-11. Painton talked about the home tournament.
“I think we were extremely nervous opening night for whatever reason. We have a lot of new players in the program, first night out at home and we didn’t perform. We didn’t do anything well,” he said. “Your goal going into a season is to get better each time you play and we’re on that path. I think we’ve gotten better each time we’ve gone out. We are continuing to do more and more things well in each ball game. I think opening night was more about jitters and nerves than it was anything else.”
Painton mentioned how the Renegades let Moorpark back into the game.
“There were some walks in there, a couple errors. Some of the freshmen have had good days and bad days and that’s going to happen at this level. Moorpark swung the bat extremely well and we knew going into the game they had a pretty good offense team and again your goal is to outscore your opponent and that’s what we did so we’ll take the win and move on from there,” Painton said. “By that game, I think fatigue had something to do with it, especially for us at home. You host a tournament; our guys are out there all day.
“You’re there 14-15 hours a day and then you get on the field to play.
“But it also has something to do with pitching staffs just being run down by the third game in the three days.
“We were fortunate to end up on the good end of a 12-11 game.”
Up next for the Renegades is another home tournament beginning on Feb. 17 starting with Reedley.