Brad Horn/Nevada Appeal
Early season tournament games usually serve as more of a measuring stick for coaches rather a sign of league success.
Through two games the Carson baseball team measures well with just a taste of the hiccups that nearly all teams have at this point of the season.
"The kids are playing hard, there's just things we need to fine tune," first-year Carson coach Cody Farnworth said. "There's some mental things that we need to work on, but I'm not going to fault them for their effort at all."
The Senators took their second win in as many games Friday night in an 8-5, 6-inning decision over Spanish Springs under the lights at Ron McNutt Field. The game was cut short due to tournament time limits of two hours.
All the early signs point that Carson could be in a for a good season as it flashed plenty of power with three home runs " one each from Paul Cagle III, Thomas Preston and Colby Blueberg " and gloves that could be the difference in their season, but again this is just a tournament.
"It just takes a lot of stress off your shoulders if you come around early," said Cagel, who went 3-for-3 with two singles and RBI. "Then you're hitting it and you just keep going with it."
While the Senators showed plenty of positives, the miscues that so many teams see early on reared their ugly little heads.
They committed two errors, with one of those coming in the sixth inning in which the Cougars scored three runs. Starting pitcher Matthew Rutledge also threw three wild pitches in 5.1 innings of work.
"(Defense) is what we start with all week," Farnworth said. "We know we can swing the bats, so we know we have to stress defense. If we can't play defense then we're going to struggle."
Carson took a quick 4-0 lead in first inning after Brett Valley reached on an error and Preston brought him home on a two-run blast that was destined for the empty field behind the big blue fence from the moment it left his bat.
Later in the inning, Rutledge helped his own cause by knocking in two runners on a single up the first baseline to right field.
Carson went through the entire lineup in the first inning and another five batters had their second at bat by the end of the second.
"It's nice because the kids are seeing the ball," Farnworth said. "They're swinging it well and a sophomore kid (Blueberg) hits (a home run) tonight and that's good to see.
"It's a good confidence thing for us to see and the pitching we're seeing hasn't been bad. The last two nights we've seen good pitching and we're hitting it."
The Carson defense kept the Cougars from getting into the game during the fourth inning. Spanish Springs threatened with the bases loaded and a run in the inning already.
Henry Rueda hit a slowly dying ball up the third baseline, Rutledge cut it off about 12 feet up the line just in time to throw Garrett Morre out at the plate.
Cagle, the starting catcher, then saw Brandon Mathis rounding third ever so slightly and fired it to Kyle Stone who put the tag on a diving Mathis to complete the double play and end the inning, still preserving a 5-2 lead.
"That's just playing baseball ... it's just practice right there, it's what we work on," Cagle said.