St. Mary's baseball propels past Lodi behind fiery offense, solid pitching

Everyone at Kofu Field held their breath for a few seconds as they waited to see if St. Mary’s Michael Quedens’ deep shot to right field was fair.

Once the umpire gave the signal, Quedens flipped his bat and circled the bases on a two-run home run to solidify the Rams' 7-3 victory over Lodi.

“Man, it felt good,” Quedens said after his homerun. “That hit right there put the game away and it just feels good to win the series right now. We took two of three but still got one more against Lodi on Friday."

With this win the Rams secured a winning series over the Flames and improved to 2-0 in Tri-City Athletic League play. Here are the key takeaways from St. Mary’s win.

St. Mary’s bats get hot early

After picking up two Ks in the first inning, Lodi’s junior pitcher Andrew Fichtner was rolling on the mound. That changed quickly once senior Tyson Reis came up to bat in the second inning. The senior catcher got a pitch he couldn’t resist and smacked the ball over the field’s gate notching the first run of the game.

Reis’ home run kicked off the Rams’ offense as they went on to score three runs in the second inning.

“This offensive performance feels great because they’re doing a good job and finally came around to hitting the ball,” said Jason Lindholm, St. Mary’s baseball head coach. “Our pitching has been keeping us in it the whole year and now hopefully we’re turning things around to start hitting the ball better.”

Leading St. Mary’s fiery offense were Quedens, Reis and junior Alex Escalante. Quendens, a Michigan commit, finished the game with a team-high three hits, two runs and two RBIs on four at-bats. Reis reeled in two hits, a run one RBI, and a double while Escalante added one hit and one run.

The Rams continued their offensive dominance scoring at least one one in the third and fourth innings. They closed out the sixth inning with Quedens' nail-in-the-coffin home run, snatching the series from the Flames.

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Sophomore pitcher Nico Bavaro earned his third win on the mound thanks to his team’s run support and his solid five innings. He only allowed four hits all game and one run in the third inning. Bavaro also picked up three Ks to put his season total to 29 so far.

“Nico has been doing awesome,” Lindholm said. “He’s been really good for us and he’s moved into the starting role for right now. He’s doing a good job and looking to hold on to that spot.”

Mistakes pile up for Lodi

After losing to St. Mary’s in the first game of the series on April 1, the Flames were itching to tie the series up. Things started to slip once the Rams got on the board first and Lodi’s offense couldn’t answer back in a hurry.

“St. Mary’s made a couple of good plays in the outfield and centerfield made some big plays as well that took a couple of runs away from us,” said Hobie Schultz, Lodi baseball’s head coach. “But other than that, I'm happy with the way we played. We just got to clean up defensively and we'll be okay on Friday.”

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Leading the Flames offensively this game were seniors Brent Godina and Caiden Andes. Andes got Lodi’s first run across in the second inning after getting on base with a single. Godina made his mark in the seventh inning smacking a two-run home run of his own to bring him and Fichtner home.

Defensively, Lodi made a total of four errors against an efficient team like St. Mary’s which ended up being detrimental for their comeback efforts. With this loss, the Flames fall to 0-2 in TCAL and to 8-6 overall. They will be looking to avoid a series sweep as they travel to St. Mary’s on April 5.

“The TCAL is gonna be a toss-up, I mean, all the teams are good,” Schultz said. “Every game is going to be a battle so we’re just taking it one game at a time and playing hard every game.”

Record reporter Shannon Belt covers sports. She can be reached at sbelt@recordnet.com or on Twitter @ShannonBelt3. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: St. Mary's baseball propels past Lodi behind fiery offense