Buhach Colony baseball wins shortened rivalry game

With an audible boom that shook the bleachers, half the lights went out at Memorial Ballpark on Friday night.

The Atwater baseball team’s playoff hopes may have dimmed right along with them.

The power failure came right before the bottom of the sixth inning with Buhach Colony leading the Falcons 9-3. After about a 10-minute delay while Atwater attempted to restore power, the coaches and umpires got together to decide whether the game would be postponed for another day or end then and there.

With five complete innings in the book, the umpires said the section rule called it a complete game and reverted the score to where it stood after five innings, giving the Thunder an 8-3 victory. The win ended a nine-game losing streak.

It also left the Falcons (15-10, 7-6 CCC) on the outside of the playoffs looking in with two games to go. The good news for Jared Pimentel’s squad is they control their own fate, with a home-and-home against third-place Merced next week. Atwater will need to win both to reach the postseason.

“We dropped three pretty routine fly balls that led to a number of runs. We committed some errors that set up a few more,” Pimentel said. “Then offensively, we put the bat on the ball but couldn’t make much solid contact.

“The lights are embarrassing, but if we want to make the playoffs we’re going to have to play better than this.”

While the Falcons weren’t pleased to have been denied their final two at-bats, Buhach (12-13, 4-9 CCC) was more than deserving of its first conference win in over a month.

Three nights after getting hit solidly in a relief appearance, left-hander Brandon Esau was on. The senior took advantage of the home plate umpire giving the outside corner, routinely painting the black to get ahead in the count and keep the Atwater bats off balance.

Esau surrendered just two infield singles and allowed just three balls out of the infield in his five complete innings.

“Brandon was very good tonight,” BC coach Greg Wakefield said. “He’s struggled like everybody else during the last couple weeks, but he’s been solid out there for us all season.

“We finally caught some breaks and had a few balls fall in that haven’t been, but I felt like it was because we were aggressive and put ourselves in good spots. We ran the bases well, and we took advantage of their mistakes.”

The Thunder got all the offense it would need in the second inning, hitting through the order and scoring five. Mike Casso had a two-out, two-run single, and Julien Sandoval (2 for 2, 3 R, 2 RBI) followed with an RBI triple.

This story was originally published May 1, 2015 at 11:07 PM with the headline "Buhach Colony baseball wins shortened rivalry game."