Colusa rains on Thundercats' parade

With the game time moved two hours later, the Colusa Channel Cats and Oroville Thundercats decided to play one nine-inning ball game instead of their scheduled doubleheader Wednesday, and the Channel Cats firebombed Oroville 15-5, at Mitchell Field.

Each team batted 11 players in the lineup, reverting to beer-league softball rules over American Legion ones, to make playing time easier to manage over a single game.

Darren Swearinger dealt six strong innings to earn the victory for Colusa. He gave up five runs (one earned) on seven hits with four walks, a hit batter, and six strikeouts. Teammate D.J. Desmond closed the final three frames with no runs on four hits for the save.

Sean Rawlin socked two doubles and a triple, scoring once and driving in the first two runs of the game to pace the Channel Cats offensively.

Colusa pounded 14 hits and took advantage of eight Thundercat errors, overshadowing the hosts' 11 hits.

Colusa took a 6-1 lead with a four-run second inning.

Blaine Huber reached on the first baseman's error after a routine ground ball to second base, and Dylan deWit and Swearinger clocked back-to-back RBI singles. Cyrus Yerxa was hit by a pitch, Davis Walker drew a base on balls and Steven Perry capped the rally with a two-out base hit, which plated the final run.

Swearinger knocked in three runs, going 3-for-4 with a double and a run scored, and Tyler Kreditor slapped a two-run double, finishing 2-for-5 with three RBI.

Huber drove in two runs, scoring twice along with Benji Gil and Tyler Wells.