West Park blanks Vista, 10-0

West Park's varsity baseball team held its annual Strikeout Cancer baseball game on Saturday and hosted Vista del Lago from Folsom. A game featured two good teams, as West Park entered with an 11-1 record, while Vista was 10-3. With two non-league teams playing, the outcome of the game didn't really matter. West Park 10-runned the Eagles in 4 ½ innings, winning, 10-0, but the game's real purpose is to raise awareness for cancer, as well as some money specifically for ovarian cancer. Mission accomplished, as West Park coach Ben Petersen said before the game that the goal was to raise $2,500 and that they had almost reached the goal at that point. The big West Park win was just a continuation of the fabulous season the team is having, as they've won 12 of its first 13 games. "We're off to a really good start," Petersen said. "We've got a good, solid team. We've got a lot of boys who have been here three years and some who have played here four years. We've also got a good group of juniors who have been learning from the seniors. We've got 13 seniors so that's the foundation." West Park has won so many games because they do a lot of things well. "We hit the heck out of the ball," Petersen said. "We don't make a lot of errors in the field, and we throw a lot of strikes. We don't walk a lot of guys, so we do a good job of minimizing free bases. That's the secret. When you can make the other team put the ball in play and throw strikes, that's going to bode well for you." Vista del Lago has also had a good start to its season, as they managed to beat Capital Valley Conference leader Rio Americano once in their three-game series. They've since taken two-of-three from Christian Brothers and then swept Inderkum. "The season's going good," Vista coach Jim Bazor said. "We had a tough series with Rio, losing two close games. They hit the ball well and play sound defense; you can't make too many mistakes against them. "We played a little cleaner and won the series against Christian Brothers and then swept Inderkum. I think we had 37 hits in three games against them so the bats woke up in that series." The Eagles are 6-3 in league and tied with Woodcreek for second place, one game behind Rio Americano. Vista faces Woodcreek this week. "Our pitching has kept us in games and has been strong," Bazor said. "The staff is starting to pick up some momentum as far as throwing to the strike zone and being competitive with each pitch. The defense has done well behind them. It took a little while to get up to speed with our bats, but we're getting better with that. We're really focused on Woodcreek this week." In Saturday's win, West Park had four players with two hits, as Nick Pajcin had two doubles, scored two runs and knocked in two. Jesse Palmer had two hits, two RBIs and scored a run, while Jace Oliver had two hits, scored twice and drove in one run. Aiden Joosten also had two hits, scored a run and knocked in another. Ayden Deome opened the scoring with a two-run home run in the first inning. Bradley Hunter pitched all five innings and allowed three hits, struck out six and walked one. Vista had hits from Nat Ha, Asher Taylor and Logan Hamblin.