A scrappy effort by the Carson Blue Jays fell just short Thursday afternoon.
Aidan Nagle hit two homers and drove in three runs, and Santa Rosa Connie Mack edged Carson, 8-7, in the first round of the Reno Knights July 4th Tournament at Ron McNutt Field.
Carson will play twice Friday at CHS at 12:30 and 3 p.m.
Carson coach Bryan Manoukian was upbeat after the setback. Santa Rosa is a team with graduated seniors and junior college players, and Carson stayed with them most of the way.
“For them being an older team, I thought we did a good job scrapping and battling,” Manoukian said. “That guy (Nagle) hurt us. He has a nice, compact swing and he drove the ball really well.”
Nagle’s first homer came in the third, a two-run blast off Ben Nelson to snap a 1-all tie. Santa Rosa went onto score two more in the inning when Nolan Alverez was plunked by Nelson, who then gave up back-to-back doubles to Dylan Currin and Bailey Swan to grab a 5-1 lead.
Carson retaliated with three of its own in the bottom of the inning, slicing the lead to 5-4.
Joe Tonino singled, stole second and scored on Kyle Glanzmann’s single to right-centerfield. Kahle Good singled, advancing Glanzmann to second. Landon Truesdale forced Good at second, but the relay throw to complete the double play was wild, allowing Glanzmann to score. Jared Barnard followed with a run-scoring double. Teigen Key grounded out to end the uprising.
Santa Rosa reached Nelson for two more in the fourth, as Alverez and Currin delivered back-to-back run-scoring singles to make it 7-4.
“Ben threw OK the first two,” Manoukian said. “He just lost focus (the next two) and became uncompetitive.”
Abel Carter singled to lead off the fifth, advanced to second on Glanzmann’s infield out and scored on Good’s double to right-center, slicing the deficit to 7-5.
Nagle drove a ball over the fence in center off Gryphon Matthies to make it 8-5. Matthies and Reese White blanked Santa Rosa the rest of the way.
The Blue Jays made it interesting in the seventh when Carter walked, stole second and scored on Glanzmann’s single. Glanzmann went to second when Santa Rosa missed the cut-off man.
Devon Ogsten came on in relief, and struck out Good on a nasty two-strike breaking ball. After Barnard was retired, Key kept Carson’s hopes alive with a single to left to plate Glanzmann and send Truesdale. who had walked, to third. Garritt Benavidez grounded to second to end the game.
Santa Rosa’s Mike Paul was somewhat down despite the win.
“We were just OK,” he said. “We need to step it up.
“We let the tying run get into scoring position because we missed the cut-off man and we weren’t timely with our hitting.”
No doubt Paul expected more because his team is older and more experienced.
NOTES: Carter, Glanzmann and Good all had two hits... The bottom four hitters, however went 2-for-12 with one RBI and one run...Other games in the tourney are being played at Reno and Wooster.