The red hot Acalanes Dons took on the Petaluma Trojans in Sonoma County on Monday and came away with a 2-1 victory to improve their undefeated record to 4-0.  Junior Jake Colaco took the hill and pitched an outstanding game to fuel the boys.  Solid pitching, defense and timely hitting has been the early season recipe for success with the Varsity squad.  Jake went 5 and 2/3 innings, giving up 1 hit, 3 walks, 1 earned run and recording 4 strikeouts in an efficient outing for the Dons.

Sophomore Branson Smith relieved Colaco in the 6^th inning and recorded the save to seal the win.  There were a couple of tense moments, but centerfielder Keegan Goddard and left fielder Everett Glass came through with late innings defensive gems when the team needed them most.  Overall the boys played a clean, errorless defensive game in less than perfect conditions.

Offensively the Dons scratched out 5 hits against several tough Trojan pitchers.  Sully Bailey led the team with 2 hits.  All of the Acalanes runs were scored in the 5^th inning.  Third baseman Gavin Bender got the rally started with a leadoff walk.  Second baseman Mason Zirkel followed with a perfect sacrifice bunt down the third base line to advance Bender to second.  DH Isaac Copen then singled to center to put Dons on first and third, before shortstop James Stadt laid down a pretty safety squeeze bunt down the first base line to give the boys a 1-0 lead.  It was small ball at its best, with a walk, two sacrifice bunts and a single producing the first run of the game.  Everett Glass then came up and took a change up to right field for an opposite field hit, scoring pinch runner Tommy Terhar and pushing the Dons lead to 2-0.

The Trojans scratched out a 6^th inning run to cut the lead to 2-1, but that was the end of their scoring. So far so good for the Varsity Ballers.  They take on the Vintage Crushers at home on Thursday at 4pm.  Come out and see these boys do their thing.  It’s exciting, well played high school D1 baseball at its best.

Go Dons!