Carson Turnquist Shines in Foresters’ 9-4 Victory Over OC Riptide

Santa Barbara Takes Two of Three Games from OC Riptide in Weekend Series

Rylan Galvan celebrates with Greg Pace following his solo homer. | Credit: Victor Bryant

Carson Turnquist flirted with perfection in his six innings on the mound and the Santa Barbara Foresters captured a 9-4 victory over the OC Riptide in the final matchup of the summer between the top two teams in the California Collegiate League South on Sunday at Pershing Park.

The Foresters are 5-2 against the Riptide this summer with three of those victories coming by one run. Santa Barbara now holds a 3.5-game lead over the Riptide with five CCL games remaining, so, barring a catastrophic collapse, the Foresters will once again finish in first place.

“It was kind of the rubber match of this weekend series and the rubber match of the summer series,” said Foresters head coach Bill Pintard. “They’re a really good team. They’ve been chasing us, and it’s great to win a series against them.”

The Foresters were coming off a 5-3 loss to the Riptide on Saturday in Irvine. The team got back to Santa Barbara after 1 a.m., but proved to be ready for the 2 p.m. start on Sunday. A three-run bottom of the first inning by the Foresters, highlighted by a Will Rogers two-run homer, set the stage for a dominant performance.

“It’s not easy going down to Orange County and playing. It’s not easy driving up here and playing,” said Pintard of the matchups with the Riptide this season.

Turnquist was sharp from the very beginning and did not allow a base runner until the top of the fifth inning, when Riptide second baseman Connor McGuire drilled a single to left field. Turnquist immediately neutralized the threat by inducing the next batter, Connor Clift, into a flyout and striking out Cary Arbolida to end the inning.

Carson Turnquist has been dominated on the mound for the Foresters this summer.

“I feel like I always really have my fastball there, and then I was tunneling stuff off that,” said Turnquist, who only surrendered one hit and one walk in his six innings of work. “My changeup and my curveball were good today, the slider was kind of iffy at times, but I felt really good and I was getting guys out.”

The Foresters’ offense was just heating up as a solo homer by Rylan Galvan increased the lead to 4-0 in the bottom of the fourth inning. Santa Barbara added three runs in the bottom of the fifth as Jalin Flores ripped a double to left field to score Daniel Patterson from first. An infield single by Rogers brought home Flores, and Eamonn Lance followed with a two-out solo homer increasing the lead to 7-0.

Santa Barbara tacked on two more runs to go ahead 9-0 in the bottom of the sixth inning, with both runs coming on Riptide wild pitches.

The Riptide got on the board in the top of the seventh inning when Nathan Cadena launched a solo homer to left field off of Foresters reliever Jacob Hughes.

After back-to-back walks to open the top of the ninth inning, Hughes was replaced by Patterson. Orange County pulled to within 9-4 before Patterson struck out Patrick Hackworth to end the game.