Carson baseball squad wins own tournament

Things went a little too easy for the Carson Senators through most of their first four games of the season, so it was only fitting that they shake it up a little before jumping into league play.

The Senators made an error, threw a wild pitch, hit a batter and balked all in the seventh inning, but hung on to knock out the Truckee Wolverines 4-2 Saturday at Ron McNutt Field. They took another win earlier in the day, 7-1 over Fernley.

"(The drama's) good for us, we need it," Carson coach Cody Farnworth said. "We got a lot of new people to play tonight so we wanted to see what they were made of and they battled and did what we wanted."

The win gave the Senators their fourth consecutive to start the season. They will open Sierra League play Thursday against South Tahoe.

David Perce entered the seventh inning, with a three-run lead and a save opportunity on the table. He got Mike Fagen to ground out to second to start the inning, but Scott Mathot hit a fly ball to right field that poked out of the left fielder's glove sending him to second.

The next hitter, Ryan Zusy was hit on his foot by a pitch, a call that sent Farnworth to the plate to argue.

Travis Dwyer hit an RBI-single to right center, bringing in Mathot for an unearned run.

Perce then was called for a balk on the next batter, advancing the runners to second and third.

"Oh, my God," Perce said with a large sigh. "I felt like I didn't move, but he saw me move. I don't know, can't really argue with an umpire."

But Farnworth did " to no avail.

Perce had to be calmed down by his teammates before striking out the next two batters and stranding the game tying runs on the bases.

"I just went back to the mound, took deep breaths, was calm and just threw strikes," Perce said.

Farnworth added: "We threw him a little bit last night and that's what his role is going to be. He's going to come in the late innings and get outs for us.

"Tonight, I was impressed with him. He's actually got that short-reliever mentality, that closer mentality so we like that."

The Senators had cruised through the first six innings. They gave up a run in the first inning, but quickly got it back when Paul Cagle III reached on a error.

In the second, Tyler Hutchins brought in Dustin Buttner for the go-ahead run on a single to centerfield.

Carson tacked on the remaining two runs in the third and fourth inning with Cody Barr and Matt Rutledge both knocking in RBI-doubles.

As it has done throughout the tournament, Carson flashed a great glove but also made some errors that left you scratching your head. It had three errors against the Wolverines, but also made a great relay from centerfielder Thomas Preston to Rutledge to Barr, who tagged out Fagen trying to stretch for a triple in the fourth inning.

"As I've told you guys all weekend, we've got a lot of work to do still," Farnworth said. "There's little things we need to do. Our base running needs work, some defensive stuff we need to work on, but for the first weekend, I'm happy with where we are."