CHICO, Calif. - Staff ace
Will Rudy struck out the first two batters he faced, worked out of some trouble, and got a pair of five-run frames among four crooked numbers behind him as Cal Poly Pomona routed Cal State San Bernardino, 16-5, to begin its involvement in the 2022 California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Baseball Tournament at Nettleton Stadium on Thursday afternoon.
With a sixth consecutive victory, second-seeded CPP improves to 33-17 overall and 18-3 since the calendar flipped to April. Cal State San Bernardino falls to 26-26. While the Broncos took advantage of their bye Wednesday, fifth-seeded CSUSB rallied late to edge No. 4 seed Sonoma State, 5-4, in a single-elimination contest under the tourney's new format that ended just after 10:20 p.m. Also with that same format, the Yotes were reseeded at No. 3 following Wednesday's action.
Cal State San Bernardino, making its first appearance since 2016, had just been swept at Sonoma State to conclude the regular season last Thursday through Saturday. The Yotes had previously, however, won their series with CPP, at home in late February, three games to one.
CPP incidentally is still the reigning champion of this event, having remarkably parlayed it's No. 6 seed into a 4-1 mark and second-ever tourney banner in Stockton back in 2019, before the 2020 and 2021 editions were wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Broncos are appearing in their seventh straight conference tournament.
CPP advances into the winner's bracket to take on a surprising Cal State Dominguez Hills outfit that scored three in the top of the ninth and held on to defeat 10th-ranked and top-seeded regular-season champion Cal State Monterey Bay, 5-4, in Thursday's first game. First pitch on Friday, May 13, for the Broncos and Toros is set for 3 p.m. CSUSB drops into an elimination tilt against the Otters on Thursday night at 7 p.m.
Rudy, who was named CCAA Most Valuable Pitcher on Tuesday, promptly began Thursday's contest with a four-pitch strikeout to regain sole possession of the league lead at 82. The third-year freshman right-hander got the next batter to chase as well, before issuing just his 10th walk of the campaign. Rudy fell behind 2-0 to Yote slugger Kyle Csakan, the CCAA co-leader with 20 home runs, but came back to freeze him with a fastball on the outside corner.
The second began with an opposite-field bloop single to right by Giovanni Del Negro.
Cesar Lopez ranged back to the track in right to haul in Daryl Ruiz's deep fly ball, before Rudy caught Deshawn Johnson staring at another outside fastball, and froze Riley Parker on the inside.
CSUSB threatened in the third through a one-out error and an infield single, but a nice play by shortstop
Nick Lugo on a fielder's choice groundout left runners at the corners with two gone, and Csakan swung through an 0-2 Rudy pitch up in the zone to keep it scoreless.
Yote starter Austyn Coleman had retired the first eight Broncos in order on just 26 pitches before No. 9 hitter
Casey Slattery worked a seven-pitch walk in the home third. A foul pop-up ended that frame.
Del Negro led off the fourth with another opposite-field single, and Rudy fell behind Ruiz 3-1, but he got the Yote first baseman to swing through the next two offerings, and on the second, All-CCAA First Team catcher
Johnny Pappas fired to fellow sophomore Lugo for the strike-him-out, throw-him-out double play. A first-pitch groundout ended it.
Pappas came right back and lined an opposite-field single to right on Coleman's second toss of the home half for CPP's first hit of the afternoon.
Cesar Lopez laid down a sacrifice bunt. With two gone,
Jacob Lopez was plunked and Lugo worked a six-pitch walk to load the bases. Third-year freshman third baseman
Tyler Chaffee came through in the clutch by poking an 0-2 pitch through the left side for a two-run single. True freshman centerfielder
AJ Nimeh followed with an opposite-field, two-run double inside the third base line, and just like that it was 4-0.
A second error in the frame on Slattery's chopper allowed Nimeh to sprint around for an unearned fifth tally before CSUSB got the third out.
Rudy breezed through a shutdown fifth on just six pitches, with a flyout to
Cesar Lopez, eighth strikeout and infield popout.
Cal State San Bernardino loaded the bags with no outs in the sixth on a four-pitch walk, single and hit-by-pitch. The Yotes' first run came home while Del Negro reached via infield error, and a Ruiz sacrifice fly made it 5-2. Rudy got two final strikeouts to end the inning, but in between, another Bronco error allowed Csakan to score to make it a 5-3 ballgame.
Chaffee opened the home sixth with a double that rolled all the way to the wall in left center, and moved to third on Nimeh's right-sided groundout. With runners at the corners,
Ryon Knowles attempted a squeeze bunt. Yote reliever Andres Quinones picked it up and had Chaffee caught off third, but Csakan's throw went off Chaffee's back coming home in the rundown and allowed him to score. Pappas' ensuing two-strike single to the opposite field in right plated Slattery for 7-3.
The bottom of the seventh began with back-to-back walks and a Lugo bunt, and CSUSB went to the bullpen for the third time. Chaffee worked the count full against the new arm, and with the infield playing in, bounced an RBI single up the middle for 8-3. With two outs and the bases full, Knowles put together an exquisite at-bat to effectively kill off the game. Selected Monday as this season's final CCAA Player of the Week, and on Tuesday to the All-CCAA First Team, Knowles saw eight pitches before drilling an opposite-field, three-run triple to the gap in left center, all the while extending the fourth-longest hit streak in program history now to 22 games.
A hard-hit ground ball toward the diving second baseman went down as an opposite-field RBI single for Pappas as Knowles trotted in for 12-3.
CPP tacked on four final runs in the eighth.
Ricky Nuñez rolled a leadoff single up the middle,
Jacob Lopez tripled over the centerfielder on the very next toss, and Lugo produced an RBI single, also to center. A final pitching change preceded two more walks, the latter by Slattery with the bags full, and an RBI single deep to right from Knowles.
Rudy (8-1) went 6.0 innings and allowed three runs, two of them earned, on four hits, one hit-by-pitch and a season-high-tying two walks. He struck out 10, reaching double digits for the fourth time in 2022.
Just like in the Feb. 25 meeting in San Bernardino,
Matt Orozco took over to start the seventh. He worked around a one-out walk and got three fly-ball outs in an 11-pitch frame, the latter two drawing nice, running catches in foul territory in right by
Cesar Lopez, and then in left center by Nuñez. Fellow senior right-hander
Connor Tousignant threw nine pitches for a 1-2-3 eighth.
Chaffee went 4-for-5 with a double, three RBI and a season-high four runs. Knowles wound up 2-for-6 with his triple, a run and four RBI. Nimeh was 1-for-3 with a double, walk, hit-by-pitch, two runs and two RBI.
Jacob Lopez finished 2-for-3 with a walk, hit-by-pitch, triple, three runs and an RBI. Pappas was 3-for-6 with a run and two RBI. Nuñez added two hits and two runs. The Broncos batted around three times.
Coleman (6-5) gave up five runs, four of them earned, on five hits, a hit-by-pitch and two walks over 4.2 frames for CSUSB. The fourth-year sophomore right-hander fanned one. He turned in a 10-pitch 1-2-3 initial inning through a foulout and groundout to Csakan at third around a called third strike. Coleman needed eight tosses for a clean second, but the second time through the potent CPP order proved to be his undoing.
CPP and CSUSB entered 1-2 in the CCAA in fielding percentage, but each committed three errors to match their single-game highs for 2022.
All games of the 2022 CCAA Baseball Tournament, May 11-14, will stream live online via the CCAA Network at
www.ccaanetwork.com. Fans may also download the CCAA Network app on your iOS or Android smartphone, tablet, or through web streaming devices such as Amazon Fire, Roku or Apple TV. The CCAA Network has moved to a subscription-based model at just $9.95 per month. Subscribers have access to all CCAA broadcasts, both live and on-demand.
Click
HERE for CPP's postgame press conference with Chaffee, Rudy and head coach
Randy Betten, and
HERE to access CCAA Tournament Central.
Bronco Bits: Cal Poly Pomona is 353-217 (.619) overall and 18-11 (.621) in its eighth CCAA Tournament appearance under 12th-year head coach
Randy Betten ... Betten posted the same batting lineup for the fifth consecutive contest ...
Ryon Knowles led off for the fifth game in a row and ninth time in 2022 ... Prior to the first pitch, Knowles, a graduate student, was presented with the Elite 13 Award for CCAA baseball, given to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating in the championship ...
Will Rudy made his 15th collegiate appearance, with his 12 career mound starts all coming this season ... Rudy's strikeout-to-walk ratio of 9.00 at the start of the day was second in the CCAA and fourth in Division II ... Rudy reached double-digit strikeouts for the first time since March 25, and also punched out 10 Yotes over six complete frames in an 11-5 win on Feb. 25 in San Bernardino ... Rudy has gone at least 5.2 innings in all 12 of his starts in 2022, and allowed more than one walk twice, with two in each of his last two starts in May ... Rudy's strikeout-to-walk ratio dropped to 8.27, with 91 strikeouts against 11 walks ... Of Rudy's 11 walks, only two have scored, with the second one today after CSUSB's Garrett Macias became his fourth leadoff walk to start a frame and later came around in the sixth ... CPP is 11-1 in Rudy starts, and 11-0 when he goes at least 6.0 innings ... With three runs scored in last Saturday's regular-season finale against Cal State Dominguez Hills,
Cesar Lopez eclipsed the 100-run mark for his career, now with 102 ...
Casey Slattery's two walks give him a league-best 39 ...
Johnny Pappas threw out his 10th would-be base-stealer on 25 tries in the fourth ...
Cesar Lopez's fourth-inning sacrifice hit was his first of 2022 ...
Jacob Lopez's fourth-inning hit-by-pitch was his 10th ...
Nick Lugo's fourth-inning walk extended his reached-base streak to 19 games ...
AJ Nimeh's fourth-inning double was his fifth ...
Tyler Chaffee's leadoff double in the sixth was his ninth ... Slattery's sixth-inning hit-by-pitch was his eighth ... Lugo's seventh-inning sacrifice hit was his team-leading fifth ... Knowles now has three triples in the green and gold, all coming this season, with today's hit also extending his reached-base streak to 22 games ...
Jacob Lopez added his third triple in the eighth ...
Cesar Lopez's reached-base and hit streaks were snapped at 30 and 10 games, respectively ... CPP scored 16 runs to reach double digits for the 16th time, now 14-2 in such contests ... Six more walks increased the Broncos' CCAA-leading total to 282, with CPP having entered Thursday 10th nationally ... In its 11th all-time CCAA Tournament appearance, CPP is 22-17 overall, 2-1 against CSUSB, 21-14 in neutral-site games, 5-6 at Nettleton Stadium and 4-4 as the No. 2 seed ... Thursday marked CPP's first CCAA tourney game outside of Stockton under Betten ... CPP leads, 82-72, in this series that goes back to 1992, with wins in 22 of the last 30 meetings ... The Broncos are 30-17 against CSUSB under Betten ... CPP ended CSUSB's previous CCAA Tournament run in 2016 with a 6-2 win on the second day in Stockton ... The Broncos moved up a spot back to No. 5 in Wednesday's official NCAA West Region poll, which is used to select the six participants of the 2022 NCAA West Regional ... The NCAA selection show will air live on
NCAA.com this Sunday night, May 15, at 7 p.m. PT ... CPP was among teams receiving votes outside Monday's latest Collegiate Baseball top 30.
2022 CCAA BASEBALL TOURNAMENT
HOSTED BY CHICO STATE - CHICO, CA
SCHEDULE
WEDNESDAY, MAY 11
Game 1 - #6 Cal State Dominguez Hills 11, #3 Chico State 5
(Chico State eliminated)
Game 2 - #5 Cal State San Bernardino 5, #4 Sonoma State 4
(Sonoma State eliminated)
THURSDAY, MAY 12 (after reseed)
Game 3 - #4 Cal State Dominguez Hills 5, #1 Cal State Monterey Bay 4
Game 4 - #2 Cal Poly Pomona 16, #3 Cal State San Bernardino 5
Game 5 - #3 Cal State San Bernardino 6, #1 Cal State Monterey Bay 3
(Cal State Monterey Bay eliminated)
FRIDAY, MAY 13
Game 6 - #4 Cal State Dominguez Hills vs. #2 Cal Poly Pomona, 3 p.m.
Game 7 - #3 Cal State San Bernardino vs. Loser Game 6, 7 p.m. (elimination)
SATURDAY, MAY 14
Game 8: Winner Game 6 vs. Winner Game 7, 12 p.m.
Game 9: If necessary
