Opening Week
The Providence Christian baseball team opened the 2023 season on Thursday, February 2nd, traveling to Cal State Los Angeles, followed by a home doubleheader versus Cal Tech of Pasadena. The Sea Beggars finished the week with a 1-2 record, and the team showed great promise with signs of what's to come as they buckle down and continue the fight.
Without any fall games to knock off the rust, the Beggars looked solid in the opener vs. Cal State LA as they produced a baserunner in six of the seven innings played. Senior pitcher, Aidan Delgado (SR/Apple Valley, CA), threw a solid four innings, giving up five runs (four earned) on four hits, and striking out six batters of the twenty he faced. Junior transfer Nicolas Ramirez (JR/West Covina) and freshman Luke Silverstro came in as relief, both pitching one inning each. Offensively, junior transfer Ronnel Castro (JR/Kelowna, BC, CAN) had a solid day at the plate going 2-2 with an RBI and two assists defensively. Fellow junior transfer Nathan Oliveira (JR/Santa Clara, CA) was walked and scored a run. Junior Tucker Panarisi (JR/Santa Clarita, CA) and junior transfer Preston Wilson (JR/Tracy, CA) both went 1-2 at the plate, with Wilson recording one putout and Panarisi three with an assist.
On Saturday February 4th, the Sea Beggars hosted cross town opponent Cal Tech, and the Beavers came out swinging, jumping out to an early 3-0 lead in the 1st inning. Senior Lee Atkinson Jr (SR/Adelanto, CA). started the game on the mound, going four and 2/3 innings, giving up four runs (two earned), while striking out six batters and holding a 4-4 tie when he exited the game. Atkinson settled in well after the first inning and gave the Sea Beggar bats a chance to respond, which they did emphatically. Cal Tech added two more runs in the sixth inning to give them a 6-4 advantage, but the Sea Beggars answered in the seventh inning by putting eight runs on the board for a final score of 12-6. The offense was a collective effort, but freshman Andrew Violet (FR/Brea, CA) got things started with his first college hit, which drove in the first run of the game off a double to left field. Preston Wilson entered the game to run for Violet and scored the second run off a single by Jesus Rodarte (SR/Oxnard, CA). Nathan Oliveira's two RBI homerun in the fourth brought the game back to a 4-4 tie. Ronnel Castro, Elijah De Guzman (JR/Vallejo, CA), Kyle Fuller (SO/Junction City, OR), and Violet had doubles, and the Sea Beggar RBIs came from Oliveira (2), Rodarte (3), De Guzman (1), Tucker Panarisi (1), Kyle Fuller (3), Michael Sanchez (SO/Rancho Cucamonga, CA) (1), and Violet (1). Mario Ruiz (SR/West Covina, CA) closed the game out on the mound in the final 1 1/3 innings, facing four batters, giving up no hits, and striking out one batter for his first save of the year. Sophomore Cody Conkle (SO/Leander, TX) entered the game in the fifth inning and pitched two and 1/3 innings earning his first win of the season.
With the series originally scheduled to be hosted by Cal Tech, game two switched to the Sea Beggars being the visiting team and batting first. Providence came up empty in the 1st inning, and Cal Tech responded immediately with a first pitch home run to open the game. Freshman Luke Silvestro (FR/Upland, CA) was on the mound for his first collegiate start, and he ended up finding his groove in the three innings worked. The game was a back and forth battle with each team matching the score through the third inning with it tied 3-3. Cal Tech tacked on two more runs in the fourth, and the Sea Beggars responded with runs in the sixth and seventh innings. With the teams agreeing to play a seven-inning game two, and the score tied 5-5 after seven, it was determined that the game would go to extra innings using the international tie breaker, which puts a runner on second base to start each inning. The Sea Beggars threatened in the top half of the 8th inning when they loaded the bases with no outs and the three, four, and five hitters coming up. Unfortunately, the Sea Beggars couldn't find a way to produce the winning run. In the bottom half of the eighth inning the Beavers did, earning the extra inning win when a ball ricocheted off Ruiz's glove and a bang-bang play at first base didn't go the Providence way.
When asked about the three games to start the year, first year head coach Kevin Smith said, "The kids are working hard! We were one hit away from being 2-1 at this point in the season and I'm sure they will continue to work hard. We know good things happen when you work hard." Senior Aidan Delgado added, "The last three games have been great in terms of being exposed to what we need to work on heading into this week. The weekend brought great competition and a chance for the offense to redeem themselves and they went and scored a ton of runs on Saturday. I think the pitching staff threw well for the most part, but we definitely need to be better at limiting the free bases because those just come around to hurt us. Andrew Violet had a great collegiate debut on Saturday. Playing great defense and collecting two hits on the day. He's becoming more physically and mentally mature on both offense and defense and he's looking comfortable. Another debut was Kaulin Cummins (SO/Murrieta, CA). Being converted to a pitcher is a hard transition and seeing him go out there and shove was what the entire staff has been waiting for. Kaulin's as loyal as they get, and he deserved that moment on Saturday." Sophomore Kyle Fuller expanded saying, "I believe the team has performed pretty well over the past three games. As a team we need to execute a little better down the stretch, but it is still very early and there are a lot of areas we can grow. Kaulin Cummins is a player that has stood out to me so far, coming into his first college appearance on the mound and shutting down Cal Tech got the team fired up, and was an energy booster we really needed at that point in the game."
The Providence baseball team returns to the field today as they head south to take on 10th ranked Hope International University at 6pm. The Sea Beggars look to take the things they learned over the past three games and continue progressing forward.