Cougar baseball eager to start conference
The Lassen Community College baseball team is more than ready to get the ball rolling in conference.
The baseball team has been warming up with pre-conference games since the end of January and officially started conference play Friday, Feb. 23 with a 6-9 pre-conference record.
The 2018 LCC baseball team includes the talents of sophomores Sami Baig, Michael Wood, Eric Carlson, Ryan Thomasy, Carter Glick, Jared Kiessling, Tiler Whiteaker, Jack Bell, Jordan Dicus, Jordan Taylor, Robert Lujan, Connor Fleharty, Luke Smith and Paul Bigelow.
Freshman players for the 2018 team include Jarryn Wee, Caleb Ariaz, Mitchell Menns, Aiden Leahy, R.J. Bejarano, Coldin Shopp, Ray Guerrero, Austin Majorsky, Michael Sallee, Tristan Hager, Austin Knipe, Brooks Krause, Lincoln Turner, Thomas Stevens, Tony Gooman and Ryan Riggle.
The Cougars won three games against Porterville College in January with final scores of 17-3, 4-1 and 12-3, respectively.
The men then started February with a 10-1 win against Sierra College prior to suffering their first loss at the hands of Yuba College.
The Cougars took on Yuba Feb. 2 and Feb. 3 for a three-game set, of which, Lassen lost the first two games 10-5 and 8-5 before winning game three 3-1 in seven innings.
Between Feb. 8 and Feb. 10, the Cougars hit a three game losing streak with a 9-4 loss against Napa Valley College and both a loss of 14-4 and 6-4 to Cosumnes River College, respectively.
Lassen seemed to regain their composure during the second game of a doubleheader against Cosumnes River Feb. 10 as the men won 7-6 in seven innings, but the Cougars seemed to drop the ball yet again Feb. 15 when they lost 7-4 against College of Marin.
Lassen then found themselves struggling against Mendocino College Friday, Feb. 16 and Saturday, Feb. 17. The Cougars lost all three games with scores of 5-1, 7-1 and 16-5, respectively.
Despite the stumbling seen from Lassen in the later weeks of pre-conference, Cougar fans can rest assured that the orange and black team will be back on top for the Golden Valley Conference play.
According to the pre-conference statistics, leading the Cougars at bat is Carlson with 12 runs recorded. Smith and Thomasy are close behind with 11 runs each.
Regarding RBIs, Carlson is again in the lead with 18. Smith has 15 recorded and Lujan has nine to his credit.
For pitching, Connor Fleharty leads the Cougars in strikeouts with 17 in his 18.2 pre-conference innings pitched. Taylor is close behind with 16 strikeouts in 19.2 innings. Kiessling has five strikeouts recorded for 9.1 innings pitched.
In the field, Smith is leading by a landslide with 108 putouts. Menns had 51 putouts recorded, Thomasy is at 37 and Baig has 32 to his credit.
