College of Marin Baseball battled with College of Sequoias on Thursday afternoon in Visalia, but they ended up on the wrong side of a 5-4 score. Marin rallied to take the lead in the eighth but it was unfortunately short lived as the Mariners yielded the tying and winning runs in the bottom half of the same inning.
Locked in a 3-3 game the Mariners took the lead in the eighth courtesy of a pair of fielding errors from their hosts from Sequoias. Anthony Pomilia came home on a sacrifice fly to give the Mariners a 4-3 lead. Marin's Zach Tonnerre yielded a double and single to start the bottom half of the inning before a pair of RBI singles by Sequoias put them in the lead for good 5-4. Marin could not muster any resistance as they went down in order in the ninth.
Marin took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first thanks to Joey Loveless' double that plated Jacob Berg and Conor Bardue. The lead last until the fourth when Mariners' starting pitching Nick George hit his first bump of the afternoon.
The freshman scattered two hits and two walks through three scoreless innings before running into trouble in the fourth. After a groundout to start the frame, a single and two walks loaded the bases for the Giants. George allowed a single to score a run before he was replaced by Tonnerre. The lanky freshman induced a sacrifice fly to left which tied the game, before the runner from second was gunned down at third to end the frame.
Marin went quietly in the fifth but the Giants took the lead in the bottom half. A leadoff walk came around to score with two down as a hit to right was misplayed and gave Sequoias a 3-2 advantage. Loveless delivered for the Mariners in the sixth with a two out RBI double to tie the game up at 3-3.
Both Marin and Sequoias failed to score in the seventh prior to the decisive eighth inning.
Tonnerre shouldered Marin's loss as he allowed three runs (two earned) and six hits in 4.2 innings. George pitched the first 3.1 innings of the game and allowed two runs, four hits and four walks.
Loveless was the Mariners' offense, with two run scoring doubles and a sacrifice fly accounting for all of Marin's runs.
The loss dropped the Mariners' record to 1-3 on the young season. They have two games remaining against the College of Sequoias Giants. They face their hosts in Visalia tomorrow at 2pm.