WNCC baseball beats Modesto

Jason Chapman had four hits and four RBI and scored the winning run as the Western Nevada Community College baseball team came back to beat Modesto 7-6 in a scrimmage on Friday at John L. Harvey Field.

WNCC was able to win despite being without 11 players, who are playing this weekend in the Scenic West Athletic Conference all-star series consisting of two games in Salt Lake City designed to be a showcase for college coaches and pro scouts.

Chapman singled and eventually scored on Cliff Shepard's single to give WNCC a 7-6 lead in the eighth inning.

The Wildcats took a 2-0 lead in the third in which a Chad Walling walk and a Kevin Schlange sacrifice bunt contributed to the rally, which concluded with Chapman's two-run double.

Jose Barajas started for WNCC and pitched three scoreless innings. Jesse Rasner got out of a jam in the fourth when he induced a double play with runners at first and third and one out.

But Rasner was the victim of bad luck in the fifth when a runner was ruled safe at second after it appeared he was out when Logan Parsley couldn't take the ball out of his glove trying to turn a double play. An infield single that Rasner couldn't field cleanly then led to five runs.

WNCC cut the lead to 5-4 in the sixth. After Andrew Ferguson and Athony Garcia singled, Schlange laid down a safety squeeze bunt. But Ferguson was ruled out at the plate on another questionable call. Chapman, though, followed with his second two-run double to make it 5-4.

Modesto scored an unearned run in the seventh to take a 6-4 lead. But in the bottom of the seventh, Shepard and Andrew Reid singled and Shepard scored on Parsley's safety squeeze. Reid scored on an error to make it 6-6.

Garcia also made two outstanding defensive plays at third. In the second, he made a diving stop of a hard shot and turned a double play from the knees. In the sixth, Garcia made a diving stop of a ball down the line and made a long throw to cut down the runner at first. Roman Davis also threw out a runner trying to steal in the eighth.

Josh Creveling allowed one unearned run over 2.1 innings and Jeremy Joustra pitched the last two innings for the win.

Garcia and Shepard each had two hits and Andrew Reid, Parsley, Walling and Howard all added a hit.

Those playing in this weekend's all-star series are pitchers Justin Garcia, Josh Brink, Stephen Sauer, Cole Rohrbough and Dan Grubbs and Ryan Simpson, Taylor Meiras, Brad Carlsen, Pat Grennan, Thomas Miller and Kyle Bondurant.