Red Hot Renegades Batter Golden Eagles

FREMONT--After Friday's wild back-and-forth game in the CCCAA Northern California baseball finals, host Ohlone College didn't want to leave any doubt during Saturday's clincher with a 14-1 win over Feather River. 

The Renegades now advance to the CCCAA State Championship Final Four in Folsom next weekend, while Feather River's outstanding season will come to a close. Ohlone will take a 44-4 record to the semifinals, while the Golden Eagles wrap up 2022 with a 36-11 mark.

Today's game lacked Friday's drama as Ohlone got an outstanding starting pitching performance from Sean Fekete and monster hitting from Jadden Sheppard and Mykanthony Valdez. The Renegades scored runs in four of the first five innings, including a giant six-spot in the fifth that essentially salted the game away.

The Renegades finished with 19 hits on a warm afternoon in Fremont, with Sheppard accounting for four of them, including three doubles. Valdez had three hits and was just a triple shy of the cycle. Fekete went 6.2 innings and scattered seven hits and was responsible for just one run.

Scott Lewis got the start on the hill for Feather River and allowed only an infield single in the first and just one run in the second after working out of a bases loaded jam. In third however, the Renegade bats got even warmer with a two-run homer by Valdez to push the score to 3-0.

Meanwhile Fekete, who improved to 8-0 on the season with the win, threw three scoreless innings to begin the game. In the top of the fourth (Ohlone was the visiting team per CCCAA playoff rules), Fekete's team gave him more than enough runs with three digits, thanks in part to Sheppard's two-run double, his third two-bagger of the game. The day was done for Lewis, but the Renegades just kept hitting. By the time that six-run fifth was over, the Renegades already had 16 hits including four by Sheppard and three by Valdez. Ohlone had six hits alone in the fifth.

Feather River scored a run in the fourth on Daniel Pruitt's RBI-single. They had eight hits on the afternoon.

The Golden Eagles' 36 victories was the most for the program since the 2009 season when they went 42-5. This was FRC's first trip to the Northern California finals since 2015.