Colusa battles in first Mike West tourney

Paradise High won the first annual Mike West Invitational Baseball Tournament over the weekend at Colusa High.

The Bobcats beat Winters and Colusa on Friday, and toppled Modoc 17-1 on Saturday to win the two-day, four- team, round-robin tournament. It is named after Mike West, the Colusa High assistant principal who coached the baseball team for nearly two decades before retiring from coaching after last season.

Johnny Porter claimed the tournament MVP award by going 8 for 10 with five runs and three RBIs for Paradise. His teammates, Tyler Burrows, Kenny Bengson and Jay Dance also made the all-tournament team.

Winters placed three players on the all-tournament team: Adam Martinez, Kalib Wise and Trevor Ray.

Pitcher Hayden Bailey and catcher Joe Ferrini represented Colusa on the all-tournament team, along with Blake Williams and Jeremiah Murrietta from Modoc.

Colusa (2-2) took third place in the tourney, opening the tournament Friday with an 8-4 loss to Division I Paradise and beating D-IV Modoc 7-1. On Saturday, Colusa lost 10-1 to Winters, a team the RedHawks could face in the D-III playoffs.

Winters 10, Colusa 1

Early game jitters hurt the RedHawks in every game during the tournament, but Winters was the only team to keep them from recovering in the later innings.

Two errors in the 1st inning led to four Warriors' runs, and three more errors in the 5th led to four more on Saturday.

"We've got to find a way to get ourselves ready to go at the beginning — we can't keep digging ourselves a hole. Every game in this tournament we fell behind, even the game we won, and that's just not going to happen against good teams," Lay said.

On offense, Estevan Frias singled in the 2nd inning and Joe Ferrini doubled in the third for Colusa's only hits.

Shawn Friel reached on an error in the 3rd inning and scored on a sacrifice fly by Jose Santana for the RedHawks' only run.

Luke Corriea started the game and pitched four innings, allowing six runs, four earned, on seven hits, four walks and three strikeouts.

"It's a work in progress. We'll figure out what we need to work on and work on it, and whatever we screw up we'll fix that and come back," Lay said.

Colusa 7, Modoc 1

Bailey tossed a seven-inning complete game in the RedHawks' 7-1 victory Friday against Modoc. Bailey allowed just one unearned run and two hits while striking out 10.

The junior pitcher relied heavily on his curveball, which frequently had the Braves swinging at the dirt.

"(The curveball) was working today. We came out and battled but it helps when your team puts up seven runs, they did a good job of putting the ball in play today and making them work," Bailey said.

Connor Herrick singled in the 2nd inning and scored on a fielder's choice by Santana. Corriea singled, stole two bases and came home on an RBI groundout by Chad Elliot in the 3rd inning.

Frias singled, stole second and scored on a single by Corriea in the 5th inning, and a walk, hit batter and three errors sandwiched around a 2-run single by Frias led to four more runs for Colusa in the 6th.

Paradise 8, Colusa 4

The Bobcats took advantage of several RedHawk errors in the first two innings to build a 7-0 lead but Colusa rallied back for three runs in the bottom of the 2nd.

Frias was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Ross Cervantes reached on an error before Kyle Cervantes hit a RBI single. Ross scored on a wild pitch and Kyle scored on a sacrifice fly by Friel.

Ferrini reached on an error and scored in the 3rd inning cutting the deficit to 7-4, but Paradise tacked on a run in the 4th.

Kyle Cervantes hurt his shoulder in a collision with the wall and missed the rest of the tournament, but doesn't expect to miss much more time.

His absence, along with Riley deWit having to sit out the first month of the season due to a transfer eligibility rule, have the RedHawks playing at less than full strength, Corriea said.

"Once we get everyone back it's going to be a lot better. I think we're going to put the ball in play, make people make plays, get on base and just cause some havoc," Corriea said.

Of the eight runs allowed by senior pitcher Ross Cervantes, only two were earned. He allowed four hits and three walks in four innings, and struck out two. Santana pitched the final three innings and didn't allow a run. He gave up two hits and one walk while striking out two.

CONTACT Kirk Barron at 458-2121 or kbarron@tcnpress.com.