Momentum Swings Big for Long Beach in Grandiose Friday Night Win
The Long Beach Coast (7-3) erupted in a 26-15 win over the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (5-5) to start their second series at Bryant Field with their biggest victory of the season on Friday night.
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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3 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 26 | 22 | 3 |
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0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 15 | 16 | 0 |
MARYSVILLE, CA – The Long Beach Coast (7-3) erupted in a 26-15 win over the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (5-5) to start their second series at Bryant Field with their biggest victory of the season on Friday night.
Coast stars Cuba Bess, Cooper Vest and Thomas McCaffrey became the first three players to achieve four hits in a game. The Long Beach offense combined for seven home runs, along with accruing the most runs (26) and hits (22) in a game, despite also giving up the most runs (15) and hits (16) in a game to an opponent this season.
Newest Coast signee J.J. Almeda made his professional debut as the starter in the third Regulators alternate identity night on the season-opening road trip in Northern California. The righty from Lynwood started his night with two scoreless innings while his offense complimented him with an early 7-0 lead – three in the first and four in the third.
Almeda gave up the shutout in the bottom of the third, allowing five baserunners and four hits, resulting in three runs for the Freebirds. After just 2.1 innings, Almeda was pulled for reliever Steven Ordorica. The submariner was the bandage that Long Beach needed during the middle innings, holding the Freebirds to only one run in 2.2 innings pitched.
Long Beach broke ahead in major fashion in the fifth and sixth innings, turning a three-run lead into a 15-run lead with a pair of six-run rallies to surpass the Coast’s biggest lead of the season.
Ricky Tibbett, the third pitcher of the game for Long Beach, came into the contest in the sixth. Tibbett faced all nine Freebirds batters and only recorded two outs as the Freebirds tried to put a stop to the Coast’s momentum to that point. Yuba-Sutter posted a seven-run rally with all runs attributed to Tibbett, but the lead was still an eight-run favor to Troy Percival’s visiting squad heading into the final three innings.
Freebirds reliever Sean Wiese and Coast reliever Ryan Faulks kept the seventh inning scoreless, but the Long Beach offense returned immediately in the top of the eighth – seven more runs for the Coast plated as a result of two home runs; a three-run home run by Cooper Vest and a grand slam by Patrick Roche (Long Beach’s fourth of the inaugural road trip) gave the Coast their 15-run advantage back for the second time of the night.
The Freebirds put up a four-spot in the bottom of the eighth to get them to 15 runs on the night, but Coast reliever Jake Dixon ended the three-hour, 46-minute contest for a mammoth series opening victory, extending the Coast’s winning streak to four. The Friday night win also marked the second Regulators alternate identity victory, now with a winning record of 2-1.
Long Beach will play two more games in Marysville in the final weekend of May to close out their 12-game road trip, with both games starting at 6:35 PM PDT on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. The Coast will then debut at home on June 2 to start a six-game series against the RedPocket Mobiles.
Joey Miller