BASEBALL: Santa Cruz Spoils Senior Day

Backed by a six-run surge in the third inning, the Santa Cruz High baseball team donned the role of spoiler in a Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League matchup against second place Soquel High Tuesday afternoon in Soquel.

Soquel needed a win to keep pace with first place Aptos in the league title chase.

Instead, Santa Cruz scored 10 runs off 13 hits to stun the hosts 10-2 on Senior Day at Soquel.

Starting pitcher Colin Ferguson pitched six strong innings, allowing only two hits and striking out seven for the Cardinals.

The lefty kept the Knights bats off balance throughout the afternoon affair, giving up only one earned run in the process.

At the plate, the game stayed scoreless until a monster top half of the third propelled the visitors into the lead for good.

Six different Santa Cruz (11-14, 5-6 SCCAL) players recorded RBIs in the frame, started off by Ferguson. Erik Colombini, Zach Seftel and Ryan Roubal each followed with RBI singles of their own to push the Cards lead to 4-0.

A Bryan Adams RBI single and a sacrifice fly by Etai Levy-Richards rounded out the big inning. Santa Cruz added runs in the next three innings. The lone Soquel (15-8-1, 8-3 SCCAL) score came in the sixth off an RBI triple from slugging cleanup hitter Izaak Silva.

Soquel will now need to win on Friday and hope for an Aptos loss to tie the Mariners for the league crown.

Seniors Jake Sudman, Shawn Fisher, Silva, Chris Stavrenos, AJ Waltrip, Nick Gurr, Marcus DeVarona were honored before the game.