Men’s Golf

The FLC men’s golf team began defense of their 2016 Big 8 title with a victory in Big 8 Tournament #1 on Wednesday afternoon at Whitney Oaks Country Club in Rocklin. The Falcons shot a team score of 384, the best-ever for an FLC team on the tough Whitney Oaks layout (for comparison, last year’s Big 8 championship team shot 395). Their score was two shots better than runner-up Sierra and 22 ahead of 2016 Big 8 runner up Santa Rosa. Sophomore Mason Troike (2016 Big 8 MVP) and freshman Connor Gaymon both shot 74 to share low-medalist honors. Head coach Barry Zarecky called it “…an outstanding team effort, especially considering our #1 player shot an 82.” Next up for the Falcons is the Stanford Invitational on Monday, February 6.

Men’s Baseball

With rain looking fairly eminent for Friday and Saturday, the scheduled two-game series with DeAnza was moved to Wednesday afternoon as a doubleheader. In the opener, Falcon starter Grant Dragmire kept the Dons in check through his three innings of work, allowing an unearned run on just one hit. DeAnza’s pitching, though, was equally stingy as they shut out the Falcons through the first five innings. In the sixth inning, Falcon first baseman Kale Leach drove in the team’s first run with a booming double to left-center that cut the Don’s lead to 2-1. The Dons responded with two runs of their own in the top half of the seventh to go up 4-1. It was beginning to look like the squandered scoring chances were going to cost the Falcons a victory, until the home team loaded the bases with one out in the eighth. After a strikeout, sophomore shortstop Nicola Mislinski sent the first pitch he saw over the left field fence for a grand slam that gave the Falcons the lead for good at 5-4.  Freshman pitcher Lukas Bolen earned the save as he recorded the final two outs in the ninth.

In the nightcap, the Falcons continued their habit of squandering scoring chances as they left multiple runners on base in each of the first five innings. Meanwhile, DeAnza was finding ways to score runs without getting any hits. The Dons managed to score single runs in the first, third, and fifth innings on no hits (walks and errors were contributing factors). In fact, the Dons managed to score their six total runs on just five hits. Freshman right fielder Carson McCusker provided one of the few Falcon highlights in the sixth inning when he crushed a ball to the deepest part of the power alley in left-center. The ball stayed in the yard, but just eluded the glove of the Don’s centerfielder allowing McCusker to motor all the way around for an inside-the-park home run, his third homer of the young season. In the end, the Dons defeated the Falcons 6-2, leaving FLC with a 2-3 record.