Enjoying the longest break in between games of the season at 10 days, the Renegades baseball team (5-7) took the diamond on March 3 to open up conference play at Citrus (6-6-1) where results can be seen on www.therip.com/sports.

Prior to the conference opener, Bakersfield College most recently took on Golden West in a three-game series beginning on Feb. 19.

On the break, head coach Tim Painton doesn’t find it very useful.

“Time off is not a good thing in baseball… it doesn’t help us prepare for an opponent,” Painton said.

However, the team did some preparation as they held an intrasquad game twice last week.

The preseason hasn’t been rather friendly for Bakersfield as they have lost multiple close games and even had a stretch of five consecutive losses before its most recent victory on the final game of a three-game home series from Feb. 19-21 and final preseason game with Golden West.

Just like last year, Golden West would get the better end as they went 2-1 for the weekend.

On the first night, sophomore left-hand pitcher Joe Bresson took the mound and pitched a decent seven innings, but with hitting being the Achilles heel for the Renegades, the Rustlers managed to hold BC to just two runs. Golden West wound up winning 4-2.

On the second night, both teams were scoreless until the 10th inning where both teams managed to score five runs.

James Stea and Dillion Persi of the Rustlers helped add three more runs and getting away from the Renegades once again, 8-5.

In the third and final meeting between both teams, BC would add a victory into the win column as they’d go on to beat Golden West 7-6.

“Even though we lost that second game, it was a turning point for us because we came out and performed better offensively on the third game of the series,” Painton would say.

After facing Citrus, the Renegades will be back home to face L.A. Mission (6-6) at 2 p.m. on March 5 at Gerry Collis Field and then head to Glendale (4-10) to finish the week on March 7.