On Feb. 19, the Otters played their fourth and final game of their four-game series against Azusa Pacific University (APU) last week. The two teams fought long and hard even after their previous games with each other the past three days, but in the end APU pulled ahead with a score of 18-16.
APU had a strong start against the otters with six runs in the first inning and a total score of 6 to 4.
During the bottom of the fourth inning, Jacob Martin (#23) hit a home run and by the end of it, the teams were now neck to neck.
Later, during the top of fifth inning, an incident occured where APU player Aaron Roose (#8) took a dive on third base and Nico Hartojo (#8) stepped on Roose’s hand with his cleats while trying to catch the ball.
The game was quickly put to a pause and Roose received first aid attention. While the condition of his hand is unknown, Roose was at least able to power through and finish the play.
By the bottom of the sixth inning, yet another home run was scored for the Otters by Adrian Collazo (#15) making the score 14-13.
“We didn’t start off too hot, giving up six runs in the first inning, but we really fought back and made it a close game all throughout the way so it was really exciting. I like the way we fight and our bats really got better as the game went on,” said Monterey’s Sam Nastari (#28).
“Today I think we showed a good strat in our bats, we’re taking a lot better pitches, a lot better fast balls, laying off the things outside of the zone so I would say that’s really what we improved on as this week rolled on,” said Nastari. “In practice, we’re just gonna keep grinding and just getting better everyday as a team.”