Missed opportunities, fielding miscues lead to doubleheader loss to ARC
The Falcons hosted district rival American River for an afternoon doubleheader on Saturday, but could not taste victory as they lost two close games, 4-2 and 10-8. In the opener, the Beavers jumped out to an early 3-0 lead as they took advantage of three Falcon errors in the first inning. The Falcons settled down after that while pitcher Lauren Orris held the Beavers to just one run the rest of the way. Third baseman Delana Provan had an rbi double to left field in the second inning, and Sara Thibault closed it to 3-2 with an rbi single in the fourth, but that was all the Falcons would get. They had their chances in each of the last three innings - including a bases-loaded, one out situation in the fifth that was halted when Tatyana Rosen's smash down the third base line was stabbed and turned into an inning-ending double play – but never pushed any more runs across.
In the second game, the Beavers again got an early lead with four in the first and two more in the second. The Falcons scratched out three 2nd-inning runs but found themselves in a deep hole trailing 10-3 by the fifth inning. But a huge two-out, five-run rally, helped by several walks and highlighted by Delana Provan's rbi single, closed it to 10-8. Again, the Falcons had runners on in the final two innings but couldn't get the timely hit they desperately needed.
The disappointing losses dropped the Falcons to 3-16 in Big 8 play and 9-23 overall. They'll be busy this week with a game at Santa Rosa (6-12) on Tuesday, a non-conference doubleheader against Shasta (17-13) on Wednesday at FLC, and a makeup game against Modesto (0-17) on Thursday (5:00 pm) at Falcon Diamond before Saturday's doubleheader at Sac City (9-11).
