Feather River College took one step into the driver’s seat on Thursday in the 3C2A NorCal Baseball Super Regional with a 10-5 victory over Hartnell at the Eagles Nest.
The Golden Eagles are now just one win away from advancing to the Northern California Finals. The Golden Eagles and Panthers will square off again at 1 pm on Friday. If FRC wins, they claim the Super Regional. If Hartnell wins, the two squads will play again on Saturday at noon.
Today, Feather River jumped out quickly with two runs in the first and one plate crossing each in the second and third to build a 4-0 lead. Jake Dahl and Luke Henderson drove home runs in the first inning (Dahl’s on a RBI-double). Noah Carrington doubled to lead off the second and would come around to score, and FRC added a run in the third without a hit via a walk, hit by pitch and sacrifice bunt.
But the Panthers struck back in a big way in the fourth. Hartnell, out of the Coast South Conference, scored five times on five hits and one Feather River error to take the lead, 5-4.
Nonetheless the Golden Eagles had an even bigger answer with a 6-spot in the bottom half of the inning. Nick Anderson had an RBI-double, Dahl drove home another run with a single and Kory Chu added a run-scoring base hit. The Golden Eagles had four total hits in the inning and also took advantage of a pair of Panther errors.
From there, FRC pitching took over, mainly in the form of Kani Thomas, who came into the game in the fourth. After closing off the Hartnell rally, he shut down the Panthers the rest of the way to get the win. He pitched 4.1 innings, gave up just one hit, walked one and fanned four.
Chu had three hits on the day for the Dirty Birds and Dahl had two.
FRC will take a 33-12 record into Friday’s contest. Hartnell is now 25-19.
