SANTA ANA, Calif. – Santa Ana Baseball returned to Don Sneddon Field to host the No. 8 College of the Canyons Cougars (1-2-1) for the first game of a home and away series.
The series is a rematch of the 2017 CCCAA SoCal Regionals, in which Santa Ana took two games to one to advance to supers. Today, the Dons walked away on top again with a 5-4 win to stay undefeated and improve to 3-0 overall this season.
College of the Canyons got on the board first with a run in the second and third innings to force the Dons to swing the bats. The Dons answered the call with a three run fourth inning to take the lead.
William Meissner started the rally by taking a pitch the other way for an RBI single to give Santa Ana its first run. Erick Leef and Juan Gonzalez followed right behind him two straight RBI singles to continue the two-out rally and put the Dons on top.
In the sixth, Santa Ana added onto the lead, scoring one run on a Cougar wild pitch and another on a sacrifice fly from Juan Gonzalez to take a 5-2 lead.
The Cougars would respond with a couple runs in the 7th to cut the lead to one but then ran into Santa Ana's Nathan Cachu, who shut it down in the last three innings to earn the first save of his Don career. Cachu went three innings with two strike outs in his first appearance of the season.
Braeden Wallace earned the win for the Dons after going one and a third innings, while Jacob Lopez took the loss for the Cougars in his second start of the season. Santa Ana starter Zachary Ryan went four and a third innings for the no-decision.
The Dons look to stay undefeated when they travel to College of the Canyons for the final game of the series on Saturday, Feb. 3rd at 12:00 p.m.