The men’s baseball team hosted a three game series against Lassen Community College on Feb. 9. They crushed the Cougars in a 14-4 win in this conference matchup.

This is game one, and on Saturday the Hawks will finish the series with a double header.

The Hawks are having a hot start this season with Don Mico as the new head coach, and with new and young players their goal is to make the playoffs and
continue to stand strong.

“Our whole game plan for the whole season this year is basically our pitching comes first, our defense is second, then our offense has to execute,” Head Coach Don Mico said.

On a warm afternoon with a large crowd full of fans, family and students, their presence couldn’t been better with their loud cheers and support, so it felt good for the Hawks to be at home.

Hawks starting pitcher Josh Congress continues to show off his strength and talent as he starts off the first inning by making it a scoreless inning, and progressing to manage on getting three total strikeouts of the game.

“We want to make sure that we use him in the right amount and get him ready for the next game,” Mico said.

In the bottom of the second inning the Hawks score four runs and the pitcher for the Cougars Coldin Shopp couldn’t stop the Hawks from stealing bases and hitting singles and doubles.

Congress continued to lead the Hawks through the third inning, but the Cougars hit a triple to score their first point making the score 6-1.

With strong progress for Congress his availability was limitless, he was replaced with pitcher Daniel Vitoria to start the fourth inning.

“Congress, he’s our number guy and we don’t want to overuse him,” Mico said.

As the dominance of the Hawks continued, their performance was very accurate and their defense was preventing the Cougars from scoring any more points.

The Cougars had no answer to stop the Hawks, so for the next four innings the Hawks scored at least one run to keep extending their lead.

At the top of the eighth inning, the Cougars start off by hitting a triple to allow two players to score and making it 8-3.

Hawks infielder Alex Crouch hits a double in right field, but Cougars caught the ball but that allowed two of the Hawks to score making it 10-3.

In the top of the seventh inning the Hawks replaced Vitoria with Timmy Tarrant, and his accuracy to make it a scoreless inning helped the Hawks to keep their lead up.

“We want to score as much as possible, and want to bury them early,” outfielder Burle Dixon said.

The Hawks were continuing to score more runs, and by the end of the eighth it was game over because they wouldn’t need to be at bat again in the ninth inning.

So, to close the inning for the Hawks closer pitcher Kyle Galart had to end this game, and he did just that by making the ball to fly up and catching to call it final 14-4.

“I try to improve from my mistakes, and that helps me keep focused to learn more as a freshman,” Galart said.