RENO — It certainly wasn’t the way Carson High’s baseball team wanted to go into the toughest part of its schedule.
After Carson fought back in the top of the seventh to tie the game at 3, McQueen’s Roman Satroplus hit a two-run walk-off homer in the bottom of the seventh off Terek Been to give the Lancers a 5-3 victory Saturday afternoon at Kuraisa Field.
The Senators dropped to 4-2 entering next week’s league series against perennial powerhouse Reno. Carson is on the road Tuesday and at home Thursday. Both games start at 3:45.
Following the Huskies, Carson will play Spanish Springs and Bishop Manogue.
“I don’t think about our record much,” Carson coach Bryan Manoukian said. “It could be better and it could be worse. It would be nice to be 6-0, but it is what it is. We have the toughest part of our schedule ahead, and that will give us a pretty good indication of where we’re at as a team.”
What irks Manoukian is this was a winnable game, but the Senators’ offense didn’t wake up until the sixth inning. Two key errors, one in the first and one in the fourth, led to three unearned runs and an early 3-1 lead for the Lancers.
Josiah Pongasi led off the sixth with a double, advanced to third on Been’s groundball to short and scored on John Holton’s flyball to center.
Been, who relieved Brandon Allen to start the sixth, worked out of a bases-loaded jam. He walked two and hit a batter, but caught both Nelson Padilla and Cameron Thomas looking at breaking balls to escape any damage.
Jace Keema reached on a bad-hop single to start the seventh and moved to second on Conner Pradere’s sacrifice bunt. Cody Azevedo singled Keema to third, and Jesse Lopez followed with a run-scoring single, tying the game at 3. With runners at first and third with one out, the Senators seemed poised to take the lead. Lopez tried to steal second, but ran right into the out.
“We had the straight steal on,” Manoukian said. “He had a bad read. He heard coach Tierney say ‘read the ball’ and got confused. Coach was talking to Cody. It happens.”
Pongasi drew a walk against Satroplus, who came back to strike out Been to end the inning.
Sam Gamboa reached on an infield single, and was replaced by Liam Vivian. With the count 2-0, Satroplus hit a ball over the wall in left-centerfield for the game winner.
“He threw me a fastball inside, and I was looking for that,” Satroplus said. “He had thrown me a couple of breaking balls and got behind in the count, and then he threw the fastball inside.”
Been had location issues from the outset as five batters reached base out of the eight he faced.
“We definitely have to work on him coming in and throwing strikes,” Manoukian said.
Allen was touched for an unearned run in the first, and Carson evened the score in the top of the second on Keema’s infield out.
An error by Azevedo, a single by Brendan Yawn and a double by John Leuenhagen led to two unearned runs and a 3-1 lead after four. “I don’t think Cody realized how strong the wind was,” Manoukian said.
