REEDLEY – Immanuel didn’t have a lot of time to discard the negative mojo of a lopsided loss to Sierra Pacific on Wednesday night. Playing the Golden Bears for the second time in as many days, the Eagles hoped for different results as they returned to the friendly confines of The Yard.
Unfortunately, Sierra Pacific remained an enigma for the Eagles as timely hitting and solid pitching by the Golden Bears became their undoing in a 7-2 league loss at the Immanuel Sports Complex on April 24. Immanuel’s loss now drops them to 0-4 in the Tri-County-Kings Conference (TCKC) and 14-8 overall.
In Wednesday’s 11-3 debacle, everything went wrong for Immanuel. The Golden Bears took advantage of four errors, and coupled with a 6 run 5th inning, officially closed the books on the Eagles’ night. This time, despite cleaner play, the Eagles couldn’t reverse their fortunes against the Golden Bears.
“You know, we played a little bit more loose; I was really happy with the way we played,” said Immanuel head coach Steve Ramirez. “We played much tighter, a lot more and less errors, so I’m happy, the boys are happy.”
Sierra Pacific jumped all over Immanuel’s confident starter Jonah Thomas. Thomas, the freshman hurler, got tagged for 3 runs in the 1st inning. He eventually settled in to cool off the Golden Bear’s bats before unraveling in the 5th, giving up an additional 3 runs.
Ramirez asked a lot of his young starter, and even though he came up on the losing end, he managed to gut out a solid performance to keep the Eagles in the game.
“Jonah goes in the early JV game, he plays catcher, and then he comes up and goes back and forth,” said Ramirez. “And he’s been pitching, so he goes into the fifth inning, he’s kind of losing a little bit of steam, and the curve ball wasn’t as crisp.”
The only run production for Immanuel came in the 4th, when senior Owen Boys scored on a Jax Davidson single. Zach Stahl would touch home plate on a bases loaded walk later in the inning to make the score 4-2. The Eagles had a chance to blow the game open with runners on, but Julian Ornelas’s pop fly out ended the threat.
“They have good pitching, they have good hitting, they’re very disciplined,” said Ramirez. “Obviously, they came and kind of socked us in the face with a three run first inning. Yeah, we could’ve folded, but I was very proud of the way they bounced back; they didn’t give up.”
The Eagles (14-8) have now lost their last five straight games against the Golden Bears (16-6) dating back to 2022.
“We are going to regroup, and you know, morale is kind of high,” said Ramirez. “We kind of know what we’re going up against. We’re underdogs, you know, we’re in the Kings Division. It’s a tough, tough baseball division, and we know that. So, we just want to compete.”
