Napa, CALIF- It was a stellar pitching performance by Tanner Fanoti and Louis Hall that propelled the Storm Offense to seal the victory in the last game of the season series against Mendocino College.
The Storm got on the board early With a sacrifice bunt by Joseph Bodgan to score Stefan Raeth in the second inning. They then tacked on another two runs in the top of the third with an RBI double by carter Pennington and a RBI single by Clayton Espino. These runs proved to be all Tanner needed to get the victory. Although he was falling behind hitters early in the count, he began to settle in and find the strike zone. He continually challenged the hitters with fastballs blowing right by batters, and backdoor breaking balls keeping the Eagles off balance. The Storm continued to add on a few runs with a Sac fly by Raeth scoring Pennington, and in the top of the 6th an error by the Eagles second baseman scored Hunter Leavitt. Fonoti pitched out of a 5th inning jam that started, however got behind early and put a few runners on in the 6th inning.
Fonoti finished his day pitching 6.1 innings, allowing 6 hits, one earned run, and Ten strikeouts; which many were swing through strike three. Fanoti did get into a bit of trouble in the 6th inning and with the high strikeouts his pitch count was up and Louis Hall came in for relief. The Eagles were able to put runners at second and third, threating to score but Hall pitched out of the jam to end the inning to hold their 5-1 lead
The Storm added a few more runs to the board in the 8th inning with an RBI double by Trent Davis, after a lead-off walk to Wallen, and a Sac fly by Pennington to score Davis. Going into the bottom of the 8th with a 6 run lead, Hall walked the first batter but was able to pitch to contact for the other Eagles hitters to get out of the inning without any runs scoring. It was a quick 9th inning to end the game and add a win to the win total. Hall finished with 2,2 innings pitched allowing one hit, two walks, and one strikeout.
Offensively, Pennington went 3 for 4 from the plate with two RBI and two run scored, and the other RBIS coming from Davis, Espino, Raeth and Bogdan.