Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer
Falcons eliminated in regional playoffs

Falcons eliminated in regional playoffs

The Folsom Lake College baseball team made their presence felt over the weekend as they battled favored Fresno City College in the CCCAA regional playoffs, but eventually fell to the Rams in the best-of-three series, two games to one.  The Falcons opened play with an exciting 8-7 victory on Friday afternoon, serving notice that they weren't 'just happy to be there'.  The Falcons took advantage of Fresno's fielding errors while building an 8-3 lead after six innings.  The Rams closed it to 8-5 with two runs in the eighth, then made it interesting with a one-out, two-run home run in the ninth.  After a walk put the tying run on first, Falcon reliever Nolan Murphy came in to put out the fire by getting a fly out and the game's final out on a line drive to center field.  The Falcons' trio of sophomores John Mook (2 hits, 3 runs scored), Aidan Malm (2 hits, 3 RBI), and Josh Winkler (3 hits, 2 RBI) carried the offensive load in the victory.

 The Falcons then entered Saturday needing one victory to advance to next weekend's Super-Regionals.  With number one starter Shane Gustafson on the mound for Saturday's first game, their chances looked very good for a series sweep.  The first four innings were scoreless until Fresno broke through with a run on three hits in the fifth inning.  They followed that with two more in the sixth – aided by a Falcon error - for a 3-0 lead.  Gustafson got the first out of the seventh inning, but his day was done after giving up a one-out home run that made the score 4-0.  Meanwhile, the Falcons were getting baserunners – as evidenced by their 11 hits - but failed to get the timely hits they needed and ultimately left 14 runners on base in the 6-1 loss. 

 Saturday's finale would be the season's last game for one of the teams.  With an 'all hands on deck' mentality, Tyler Cochran started for the Falcons and was given a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Josh Winkler doubled home John Mook.  After a 1-2-3 first inning and two quick outs in the second, Cochran ran into trouble when a walk, two hits, a wild pitch, and another single tallied two runs for the Rams.  The floodgates opened in the fourth when the Rams combined three hits with a hit batter and a Falcon error for four runs.  Now down 6-1, the Falcons desperately needed an offensive spark to get back in the game.  In the sixth, leadoff hitter extraordinaire John Mook worked a leadoff walk before Josh Winkler added a one-out single.  Anthony Mislinski then came through with a two-run triple to make it 6-3, but was stranded at third when Andrew Williams grounded out to end the inning.   Unfortunately, that was as close as they'd get before the roof caved in in the bottom half of the sixth, when the Rams used five hits, a walk, and a hit batter to score five runs.  Now trailing 11-3 with just three innings to play, the Falcons would not score again as they eventually lost 14-3. 

The Falcons reached the CCCAA playoffs for the third time in the four-year existence of the program and finished the 2018 season with an overall record of 26-17.