49ers open season with comeback victory
The walls of the Yuba College baseball team's dugout at Colusa Casino Stadium are adorned with several sheets of laminated paper that have important information listed on them.
One sheet has a list of departure times for road games during the season, another lays out the responsibilities of each player for field prep duties on game day. One of the most important sheets on that wall is titled "OFFENSIVE JOBS," which lists seven tasks the Yuba lineup must set out to accomplish in each ballgame.
Second-year coach Ryan Evangelho believes that if his team completes five out of seven "OFFENSIVE JOBS" during a game, the 49ers have a 95 percent chance to win the game.
In their season opener against De Anza College of Cupertino on Tuesday afternoon, Evangelho's 49ers did one better — they accomplished six out of their seven jobs.
In an uplifting start to the 2015 season, Yuba defeated De Anza 11-6, despite falling behind 5-0 after five innings of play in Marysville.
The No. 1 priority on Evangelho's list of seven jobs is to "Score First," which the 49ers didn't accomplish, but Yuba managed to knock out the following six jobs: "Answer back," "2-out RBI," "Big Inning (3 or more runs scored in a single inning)," "Extend Lead," "Take an Extra 90 Feet," and "2-Strike RBI."
Yuba's "big inning" came in the bottom of the sixth when the 49ers plated seven runs.
The rally started with back-to-back walks before Tanner Seibel grounded to second base where an error resulted in the 49ers' first run.
Wheatland High product Haydon Liessmann slapped a single up the middle to push across another run and Dillon Lopez's sacrifice fly made it 5-3. Another error from De Anza made the score 5-4.
With two outs and two strikes against him (two of Evangelho's aforementioned axioms), sophomore Ryan Glazner gave Yuba a 6-5 lead with a two-RBI single up the middle. One batter later, Hank Pankratz delivered his own two-out, two-strike RBI with a single into right field, which extended Yuba's lead (another Evangelho offensive job) to 7-5.
"I thought we executed pretty well today," Evangelho said. "We didn't get some bunts down and missed some signs here and there, but the seven-spot was really nice to see, that's always fun."
De Anza cut Yuba's lead to 7-6 in the top of the eighth, but Yuba responded with a four-spot in the bottom of the frame.
Brandon O'Callaghan delivered an RBI single, Pankritz knocked in two with a double and Siebel plated another run with a fielder's choice.
Joey Souza pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to put the game away. Kainoa Higa was the winning pitcher after tossing a scoreless sixth prior to Yuba's big rally.
Kyle Pruneau, a two-way player who was the starting designated hitter, pitched the seventh and eighth innings in relief for a hold.
Evangelho decided to utilize what's sometimes referred to as a "Johnny Wholestaff" game where every pitcher on the team gets an inning of work.
Tyler Sharp started for Yuba and lived up to his last name. He went two innings and allowed one earned run on a groundout. The runner reached on a single and picked up two bases on a wild pitch before scoring.
River Valley product Stuart Bradley pitched the third, A.J. Masters tossed the fourth and Charles Banfield pitched the fifth.
Yuba's defense didn't commit an error behind the pitching staff.
"It was good to get a lot of these guys in the game and see some live action," Evangelho said. "Last year, we had to throw a lot of guys into the fire, but it was good to get these guys' feet wet early."
Yuba travels to De Anza on Friday and will stay the night in the Bay Area to play Ohlone in Fremont on Saturday. The 49ers return home on Friday, Feb. 6, to begin a three-game series with Lassen.
"This is our only road trip of the preseason, so we have to learn from this and use it as a business trip," Evangelho said. "We're not going to be perfect, but we just have to slowly get better each game."
Photo by Kirk Barron/Appeal-Democrat