Buhach Colony baseball edges Atwater in pitchers’ duel

When rivals occupy the dugouts, win-loss records and statistics can be tossed aside. Tuesday afternoon’s Atwater-Buhach Colony baseball game was the latest example.

The Thunder is trying to position itself to play for a Central California Conference championship next week. Meanwhile, the Falcons came in losing 11 games in a row and having been outscored 83-5 in conference play.

Blowout, right? Hardly.

Buhach Colony had to sweat out a 1-0 win behind a strong pitching performance by Kory Woods as the Thunder (11-11, 8-2 CCC) moved within one game of Turlock in the CCC standings with five games remaining.

“The rivalry itself is a pride thing,” said Woods, who pitched six innings and picked up the win. “We love to beat them. We’re looking forward to the playoffs, and we have to take every series we can.”

The Thunder closes the regular season with three games against Turlock (13-9, 9-1), which lost to Pitman 5-0 on Tuesday, and would love to sweep its crosstown rival this week to set up a championship series.

The Falcons, if anything, proved they aren’t going to lay down.

Atwater left-hander Fabian Vera kept his team in the game by limiting the Thunder to five hits and one run. Vera was helped by his defense, which has been shaky at times this season. The Falcons made just one error Tuesday.

“Fabian threw well,” said Atwater coach Jarrod Pimentel, whose team dropped to 3-19 overall and 0-10 in the CCC. “He threw strikes and he challenged. The biggest thing for him is to challenge hitters and get the ball over the plate. We played pretty good defense behind him, which helped.”

But the Falcons couldn’t do much against Woods. The Buhach Colony senior struck out 10 and allowed three hits.

When the Falcons threatened, Woods wriggled out of jams, stranding two runners in the third inning and leaving runners in scoring position in the fifth and sixth.

“He gave us six solid innings,” Buhach Colony coach Greg Wakefield said. “He was right around 90 pitches. That’s right where we want him to be. He did a good job of getting out of jams late. It seemed whenever he needed a big pitch he had it in his arsenal.”

The only run came in the fourth inning, and it was a leadoff walk to Logan Coe that came back to bite Vera. Christian Witt followed with a single, then Woods dropped a drag bunt down the third-base line for a single to load the bases with no outs.

After a fly out, pinch hitter Ruben Garcia hit a grounder to shortstop. The Falcons tried to turn a double play, but Garcia beat the throw to first, allowing Coe to score.

Ubaldo Romo closed the game for Buhach Colony in the seventh. The Falcons had two runners reach base, but both were picked off.

Javier Cardena led off with a single, but he was picked off by Coe behind the plate on a throw to first. With two outs, Wyatt Pimentel walked but was picked off by Romo to end the game.

The Falcons had three runners picked off total.

“Wyatt knows better,” Jarrod Pimentel said. “He’s been around baseball enough. We had a freshman picked off second base. He’s played baseball long enough even though he’s a freshman.”

The series continues Thursday at Memorial Ballpark in Atwater at 4 p.m.

“You never know what is going to happen,” Wakefield said. “Thursday’s game is at their place. We expect it to be another game like this.”

This story was originally published April 26, 2016 at 8:52 PM with the headline "Buhach Colony baseball edges Atwater in pitchers’ duel."