Nick Singer helps Buhach Colony even baseball series vs. Merced

Nick Singer delivered a strong pitching performance, and Ubaldo Romo drove in three runs as the Buhach Colony High School baseball team rebounded from Tuesday’s loss to Merced with a 7-1 victory over the Bears on Thursday afternoon at Merced High.

The two teams will play the rubber game of the three-game series on Friday at Buhach Colony at 4 p.m.

“Every game is important, so it was good to get that one,” said Thunder coach Greg Wakefield. “Now we’re even with (Merced) on the season and a game up on them in the standings. It’s going to be another big game Friday.”

Singer went the distance on the mound in tough pitching conditions with a strong wind blowing out.

The Buhach Colony senior right-hander scattered five hits, struck out five and gave up just one earned run.

“He’s a real gamer,” Wakefield said. “He’s done that for us all year. That’s his third complete game. He threw strikes, and he had a good mix (of pitches).”

After the Thunder (7-10, 4-1 Central California Conference) dropped Tuesday’s game 5-0 to the Bears, Singer was ready to take the ball in what he felt was a must-win game.

The Bears dropped to 11-6 and 3-2.

“As a senior, I felt I needed to step up,” Singer said. “Like Wake said, we needed to get over the hump against good teams, and today we did. We were able to get back to what we do with the bats.”

One reason for Singer’s success was his ability to keep Merced’s leadoff batter off base in six of the seven innings. It’s crucial against a Bears team that is good at manufacturing runs with small ball and their running game.

“That’s so important,” Singer said. “Wake emphasizes first-pitch strikes. He talks about how the first pitch is the most important pitch in an at-bat. I really focused on getting that first-pitch strike.”

The Thunder pushed across a run in the second inning against Merced’s Trevor Phillips with the help of a leadoff walk. Freshman catcher Ruben Garcia drove in Kory Woods with a groundout to second to give Buhach Colony a 1-0 lead. Woods drew three walks in the game and came around every time.

A wild pitch plated a second run for the Thunder in the fourth inning, and BC broke the game open with three runs in the fifth.

Mike Casso and Singer led off the fifth with back-to-back singles, and Woods walked to load the bases. Merced coach Justin Parle then brought in right-hander Mike Salmeri.

Logan Coe greeted Salmeri with a fly ball to left to score Casso, then Romo delivered a two-out, two-run double to extend the lead to 5-0.

“Offensively, we just cleared our minds,” Singer said. “We stopped thinking, and we just got up there and hit. We were able to see a lot of pitches, and we were able to pick out some good pitches to hit.”

The Thunder added two runs in the seventh with the help of two walks, a hit batter and a catcher’s interference call to increase the lead to 7-1.

Wakefield was much happier with his offense than we was after Tuesday’s shutout.

“We did make adjustments at the plate,” he said. “We hit the ball to all fields, and we did a good job with two strikes. We were able to make good contact with two strikes.”

Merced’s run came in the fifth as Ulonzo Gilliam tripled to right field and scored on a groundout by Josh May. Gilliam also made some nice catches in center field as he ran down fly balls, including a deep drive by Woods in the third that would have scored two runs.

This story was originally published April 14, 2016 at 8:13 PM with the headline "Nick Singer helps Buhach Colony even baseball series vs. Merced."