Foresters start Fourth with loss

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

With nearly 600 fans cheering them on and a rowdy crowd of beer drinkers penned up in a makeshift beer garden, the Santa Barbara Foresters fell to their north county rivals the Santa Maria Indians in a 7-5 semi-pro baseball loss at Pershing Park yesterday.
For the Foresters, who usually play at UC Santa Barbara's Caesar Uyesaka Stadium, the annual trip downtown is a highlight for local baseball fans, and win or lose, Forester’s Manager Bill Pintard just hoped there was some beer left in the kegs.
“We love to play down here on the fourth of July -- it’s a gift to Santa Barbara,” Pintard said. “I hope they saved us some beer.”


The Foresters, who sport a 25-4 overall record and are sitting at first place in the California Collegiate League, played tight baseball with the Indians and carried a 4-3 lead into the eighth inning, which was quickly unraveled with a four-run rally by the Indians that included back-to-back solo home runs.
Indians second baseman Matt Angel led the inning off with a walk and leveled the score at 4-4 on a triple by Wes Dorrell.
Dorrell’s shot to center field narrowly escaped a diving Kyle Russell and rolled back to the wall, which ended up taking the wind out of the Foresters.
Pintard said he didn’t want to pick on any one play or player, but said he would have liked to have seen Russell just keep the ball in front of him.
“When you got the lead you play it safe,” Pintard said.
Dorrell scored on a sacrifice fly, which gave the Indians a 5-4 lead. But two back-to-back solo-shots by Tyrese McDaniel and Will Campbell broke the game open and sealed the 7-5 win.
“I thought we were a little flat early in the game,” Pintard said. “We had a chance to put them away and we didn’t do it.”
In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Foresters looked poised to make a run after Roberto Lopez led off with a home run, but it was all the Foresters could muster.
“He really came to play,” Pintard said of Lopez, who led the Foresters with two hits, two RBIs and two runs scored.
The Foresters were out hit by the Indians 12-4 and stranded five runners on base. Pintard said winning opportunities presented themselves several times, but the clutch hits just weren’t there.
“We had opportunities to break the game open and we didn’t,” Pintard said. “We pushed the envelope running, we just didn’t get the hits.”
The Indians, who have a 20-12 overall record and remain stuck in second place in the California Collegiate League rankings, struck first with one run in the second inning, which was quickly equalized by the the Foresters in the top of the third.
The home team took a 3-2 lead in the third inning after Steve Susdorf led the inning off with a ground-rule-double. Lopez followed in suite with another double that scored Susdorf and Lopez scored after an errant pick off attempt by an Indian’s pitcher.
Russell scored the Forester’s fourth run in the sixth inning.
Anthony Capra started on the mound for the Foresters and scattered five hits over five innings with two earned runs.
When asked by a reporter if the noise from the beer garden and the larger than normal crowd distracted the team at all, Lopez said it may have, but that “It was just another day.”
“Our approach today wasn’t like it was in past days,” Lopez said. “In some situations we just didn’t clutch up.”
Lopez and Pintard both said the team struggled with “situational hitting,” which has carried them offensively through the season.
But when it’s the Fourth of July and the crack of wood bats returns to downtown, people just want to feel the brief heart beat of some competitive baseball, which they got -- along with the hot dogs, soda pop, beer and $9 parking at Santa Barbara City College.
The Foresters will take the field again today at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium at 5 p.m. against the Palm Springs Power.