On Saturday morning the West Hills College baseball team squared off against Lassen College (4-2) in Coalinga. The 13-8 Falcon win improves its record to 2-4 on the season.
Head Coach Stefan McGovern was happy with how the team competed all nine innings.
"Today was a great win for our team," said coach McGovern. "We had a good week of practice leading up to todays game, and it showed on the field. We stuck to our approaches at the plate and were able to come up with key hits in big situations. We now need to keep things rolling and try to gain momentum for conference play. "
It was freshman right-hander Chad Gotto who toed the rubber for West Hills in game one. Gotto lasted three innings while striking out two Lassen batters.
A leadoff homerun jumped Lassen to an early 1-0 lead.
Alante Uribe answered back in the bottom half of the inning with an RBI double to deep left field that scored Brandon Hernandez and Trent Bollman.
In the top of the second inning Lassen was able to cross two more runs on two hits and one West Hills error.
With two outs in the third inning sophomore Torin Miller roped a double to the left-center field fence. Miller was then scored on a base hit from teammate Jake Lorenzini. After three innings complete the game was tied at three all.
The Cougars retook the lead by scoring four runs in the fourth inning.
Brandon Barker was the first pitcher out of the Bullpen for West Hills. Barker allowed only one run in three innings of work, earning him his first win of the season.
The Falcons were able to respond with a run of its own in the bottom half of the fourth inning. With runners on second and third and one out, a Lassen error off the bat of Bollman scored Matt Siedem to make the score 7-4 still in favor of the Cougars.
The fifth inning is when the Falcons offense really went to work. West Hills plated its first run of the inning off a Lassen fielding mistake. A double to left field from Evan Richards brought in Hernandez and Ronnie Cross. Alante Uribe came up big again for the Falcons with a single back up the middle to score Richards and Bollman.
After six innings complete West Hills now found itself on top by a score of 10-7.
In the seventh inning a double to right field from Lorenzini crossed teammates Jeffrey Torres and Dazohn Gilchrist to give the Falcons two more insurance runs. Lorenzini later scored on a Cougars passed ball.
Tondre Neal was called to close the game for West Hills. Neal earned the save and allowed one hit in his two and one thirds innings of work.
Sophomore first basemen Alante Uribe feels that the team is finally starting to come together.
"Since we finally got that first win under our belts we can just relax and play," said Uribe. "We have a really special group of guys on this team and that makes it enjoyable to come to the field everyday.
At the plate Uribe lead the West Hills offense with four RBI's on the day.
"I didn't have the start to the season that I anticipated," explained Uribe. "I am starting to see the ball much better, and the guys all round me put me in good situations to succeed. Now we need to show up tomorrow and continue to play our game."
These two teams will face off again tomorrow in a twin bill matchup. The first game is set to start at 10:00 a.m.
For the latest on Falcons baseball, including news and score updates, follow @whcbaseball on Twitter.