It was not pretty, it was not quick, but it was a win for College of Marin. Two days after falling to San Mateo on the road, the Mariners put together a solid performance and scored in six of eight innings to win 9-5 at home on Thursday. Ryan Schalch had a pair of doubles and drove in two runs while Marcus Chiu had three hits, two runs and two RBI in a winning effort.
College of Marin started the scoring early, plating the first run in the bottom of the first as Chiu singled and came around to score on Schalch's one out double. San Mateo tied the game in the top of the second with back to back two out doubles. The Mariners retook the lead in the bottom half of the inning with an RBI single by Paul Kennedy. The team added two more in the third inning with RBI singles from Brad Bussey and Matt Tarantino to take a 4-1 lead.
Both teams failed to score again until the top of the fifth. Eric Smith started for the Mariners and made it through the first four inning relatively unscathed until he walked the first two hitters of the fifth. Cooper Casad entered with one out and runners on second and third. He induced a grounder to short that was mishandled allowing a pair of unearned runs to score and bringing San Mateo within one at 4-3. College of Marin immediately responded in the bottom half by loading the bases with one out when Chiu drove in a pair with an RBI single, restoring COM's three run lead.
College of Marin pushed their lead to six with a single run in the bottom of the sixth inning and two more in the seventh. Casad pitched two and a third innings of scoreless relief before Chris Moreno maintained the lead heading to the top of the ninth. Schalch took over in the top of the ninth allowed a leadoff walk and stolen base before retiring the following two hitters. It got bit little messy as San Mateo scored a run on an error and another on a wild pitch before Schalch struck out the final hitter to end the game and give the Mariners a 9-5 victory.
After dropping Tuesday's game by the same score there was an odd amount of symmetry in the second game of the three game series. Casad picked up the win in relief of Eric Smith as the Mariners improved their record to 6-5, while San Mateo fell to 8-2 on the season. The February 23rd coaches' poll ranked San Mateo at 5th in Northern California with College of Marin at 17th.
The rubber match of the three game series with San Mateo is Saturday, February 27th at 1PM in San Mateo.