Gavilan pitcher Shea Adams said he woke up Monday morning feeling a bit under the weather. After his masterpiece on the bump Monday afternoon, Hartnell College hitters probably wished the right hander had stayed in bed and far, far away from the field.
Adams baffled the first 13 batters he faced. And following a one-out single in the top of the fifth – Harnell’s first base runner of the game – he retired 15 of the next 18 to carry the Rams to a 4-0 Coast Conference Pacific Division nod over the visiting Panthers.
“I felt a little sick this morning actually. I was like, ‘I have a game today and I have to focus back up,’” Adams, a freshman out of Sobrato, said. “I came out today with a mentality that they beat us 5-4 last time and that we had to come out with all our stuff.”
The 5-4 setback Adams referred to occurred on March 15 in Monterey, where a 4-2 Rams’ advantage dissolved over three innings late in the contest.
Adams made sure there was little let up Monday. Mixing his pitches well, Adams struck out six, scattered three hits and walked just one in the complete game effort, which pushed his overall mound record to 6-1. No Hartnell (10-15 overall, 6-7 conference) runner moved past second base.
“We haven’t really had an outing like that this year,” Gavilan manager Neal Andrade said. “They didn’t sniff him at all. There might have been one threat, but there was no ‘uh-oh’ moment.”
The Rams (15-11 overall, 8-6 conference) now have a pair of pitchers who need two hands to count their respective win totals.
Left-hander Chris Bradley (Sobrato), who went the distance in a 3-2 victory over Cabrillo last Thursday that snapped a season-long three-game losing skid for the Rams, also has six. Bradley holds a conference best 1.29 earned run average.
Both hurlers are tied for the conference lead in wins.
“We have talked as a team, and (this team) is way better than people expected us to be,” Adams said. “Sometimes we just don’t play as well as we should. I think if we just focus on the fundamentals we will be fine.”
Adams received early run support in the second inning. Tyler Oertle legged out an infield hit and advanced to second on an errant throw from third base. He moved to third on a Bryan Bradley (Sobrato) base hit and scored on Lyell Marks’ sacrifice fly to left – using a headfirst slide to beat the throw, which one-hopped past the catcher.
Colby Lee gave Gavilan a 2-0 lead in the fourth, tattooing a one-out RBI double to the fence in center field to plate Bryan Bradley.
The every-other-inning-scoring theme continued in the sixth as Cal Tashiro chased in Oertle with a single to right field for a 3-0 lead.
Oertle crossed home plate for the third time in the eighth for some extra room heading into the ninth.
Chris Bradley finished 3 for 4 and Bryan Bradley 2 for 4 at the dish. Oertle had two hits and Marks two RBIs.
The Rams collected 10 hits in the game, and despite the four runs, left a few more on the base paths, stranding eight runners.
“We had some opportunities to execute and widen the gap to where it shouldn’t have even been a ball game,” Andrade said. “With Shea and that outing, it should feel easy to hit in a game like this. You should win most of the games when you get an outing like that.”
Gavilan is right back on the diamond today against Chabot (14-9, 7-4 conference) in Gilroy.
The Rams close the week with road dates Thursday at Skyline and Saturday at Canada.
