Santa Rosa gets on the board early in win over Oakville

Top: Luis Matamoros slides past the tag of Brett Williams to score in the sixth inning of Santa Rosa’s 8-3 win over Oakville on Thursday night. Bottom: Twilight settles over Golis Park as Greg Pease throws to the plate. Pease pitched six innings without allowing an earned run to earn the win. Photos by Matt Hanlon

By Matt Hanlon

Wine Country Baseball.com

ROHNERT PARK—The Giants got off to a fast start and never looked back. Santa Rosa scored early and never gave up the lead behind the strong pitching of Greg Pease.

Santa Rosa brought home three runs in the first inning and cruised to an 8-3 victory over the Oakville Aces at Golis Park in Rohnert Park.

“I think the boys rose to the occasion,” Santa Rosa coach Mike Hernandez said. “They came out hitting last night, this time we were able to earn our runs.”

Pease was solid through six innings to earn the win, allowing two runs and three walks without an earned run. He took a no hitter into the fourth inning until Matt Seibel singled to right.

Seibel later scored, off an error by shortstop Brett Howard to chisel the Giants’ lead to 4-1. But Santa Rosa opened the game up again in the sixth on four hits and a walk.

The Giants had 12 hits, four off the bat of Jerome Godsey and two hits a piece off the bats of Luis Matamoros, Casey Hillman and Nick Vercelli. Hillman had two RBIs and Dustin Emswyler had three.

“It was an opportunity for us to kind of in a way to solidify the tie that we had last time we played them,” Hernandez said. “It was nice to come out and string some hits together and get some early runs.”