SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – A day after combining for 28 hits at Dodger Stadium, the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team and Santa Barbara Foresters found themselves in a pitching duel as the two squads battled to a 1-1 tie after 10 innings on Wednesday at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium on the campus of UCSB.
A solo home run by Hunter Williams put Santa Barbara on the scoreboard first in the bottom of the fourth. Team USA answered back in the top of the sixth when Brendan McKay (Louisville) and Jeren Kendall (Vanderbilt) opened the frame with back-to-back doubles to tie the game.
That would be all the scoring the fans in the packed stadium would see, however, as the pitching staffs for both squads combined to hold their respective opponents at bay the remainder of the evening.
Tanner Houck (Missouri) started the game for the U.S., limiting Santa Barbara to one run on two hits over four innings of work. David Peterson (Oregon) added three scoreless innings out of the bullpen, striking out five, before handing the ball off to JB Bukauskas (North Carolina) who posted a quick shutdown stanza in the eighth. Kyle Nelson (UCSB) closed out the contest, working 1.1 innings before leaving for precautionary reasons after feeling some tightness.
For the Foresters, Kyle Johnston (Texas) was terrific, yielding only a single run on four hits while fanning six over six strong innings. Fellow Longhorn Nick Kennedy pitched the final three frames for the Foresters, allowing only one hit.
Team USA will return to the diamond at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday when it squares off with the Conejo Oaks at Angels Stadium of Anaheim.
