Borderite baseball win three straight behind solid pitching, hot bats

Blaine High School sports took a short hiatus over the past weekend for spring break, but the season has quickly started back up with baseball on a winning streak.

Baseball

Blaine baseball hosted a doubleheader against Nooksack Valley and Sultan on April 9, coming away with a pair of nail-biting, one-run victories to enter the weekend break with a .500 record.

The Borderite pitching showed up to play during the doubleheader, holding Nooksack Valley to just one run entering the bottom of the seventh inning.

Tied 1-1, the Borderites walked the game off when a fielding error by Nooksack Valley allowed a run to score, giving the Borderites the win.

Blaine pitcher Josh Cochran was dominant, striking out a whopping 18 batters through seven innings of work.

In the second game of the doubleheader, Ashton Vezzetti had a great game on the bump, allowing just four hits and no runs through seven innings, earning the complete game shutout.

In a scoreless tie in the bottom of the sixth, senior shortstop Aaron Garza broke the game open with a go-ahead RBI double.

On April 15, the Borderites exploded for 16 runs en route to a blowout 16-6 win over Mt. Baker at Pipeline Fields, bringing Blaine’s record above .500 at 6-5.

Senior catcher Evan Yates led the Borderites on offense with three hits in four at bats, including a RBI triple.

Blaine scored nine runs in the sixth inning alone, with Yates and Garza proving to be a potent part of the lineup. The duo batted next to each other in the lineup, with the pair each tallying three hits.

As of April 13, Garza is tied for fifth in the Northwest Conference with four doubles. Yates is also lighting up the conference leaderboards; the slugging backstop is third in batting average (.464), seventh in on-base percentage (.545), tenth in slugging (.464) and  tied for third in total hits (13).

Blaine will host another game at Pipeline Fields against Squalicum at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 16 (after press time), then travel to play Bellingham at 6 p.m. Friday, April 18.