Notebook: Pecos League baseball team set to play in Santa Rosa this summer

More independent league baseball is coming to Santa Rosa this summer.

The Pecos League, which features 16 teams in two divisions across six different states, will be expanding into Sonoma County with a new team, the Santa Rosa Scuba Divers, this season.

The Scuba Divers will play their home games at Doyle Park on Thursday and Friday nights in June and July. The season is 50 games long and is officially set to run from May 26 to July 31.

For those wondering about the origin of the Scuba Divers name, the team was originally set to play in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, home of the Blue Hole and the only scuba diving in the southwest United States. However, plans fell through in 2013 and the team never fully came to fruition.

“The whole time, it was always a good concept,” said Pecos League Commissioner Andrew Dunn. “Eight years later here we are. We have a team in Santa Rosa, California.”

The Scuba Divers will be playing in the Pacific Division, which features teams from Bakersfield, Wasco, Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Rafael and Martinez. There currently are no players on the roster but the league will be holding tryouts in Martinez and San Rafael in late April and early May before spring training in Santa Rosa begins in mid-May.

Host families are also needed.

For more information, go to pecosleague.com.

Local hoops standouts commit

Following outstanding senior seasons, Santa Rosa’s Will Logue and Piner’s Sarah Tait have both recently committed to college programs.

Tait, Piner’s all-time leading scorer for both boys and girls, signed her letter of intent to play to play for Butte College on Wednesday, while Logue, the Panthers’ leading scorer and a first-team all-North Bay League-Oak selection, announced his commitment to Bowdoin College on Sunday.

For her prep career, Tait scored 1,670 points with a career average of 18.6 per game. She’s the only girls player in school history to score 1,000 career points and passed the boy’s all-time scoring leader, Luke Devenny, in the final game of the season this winter. Butte, which plays in the California Community College Athletic Association, won its Golden Valley Conference the last two season and finished this past year as the No. 7 team in the state.

Logue averaged 17.1 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 15 games of reported stats as a senior for Santa Rosa. He’ll be joining Montgomery’s Nolan Bessire, the NBL-Oak MVP, at Bowdoin, an NCAA Division III program located in Brunswick, Maine.

SRJC baseball heating back up

After a tough stretch of conference games, the Bear Cubs got back on track with another lengthy winning streak.

Before their 5-3 loss to Modesto on Wednesday, SRJC had won eight straight. Following the loss, they’re now 21-10 on the year and 9-7 in the Big 8, good for fourth in the conference standings.

Their offensive leaders are Jared Sundstrom, a Point Arena grad, and Jack Gallagher, a Petaluma grad. Sundstrom has a team-high 45 hits and 15 stolen bases with a .395 batting average, six home runs and 26 RBIs, while Gallagher leads the team with nine home runs and 30 RBIs to go with 41 hits and a .376 batting average.

Gallagher also leads the Big 8 in home runs and is tied for fourth-most in the CCCAA. Sundstrom’s average and stolen bases put him second in the Big 8 in both categories.

On the mound, starter Tyler Stasiowski, an Analy grad, leads the team with 69.1 innings pitched and has a 5-4 record with a 3.38 ERA and 76 strikeouts. He’s second in the conference in strikeouts and fourth in the CCCAA.

Reliever Garrett Edy, a Maria Carrillo grad, has also emerged as the Bear Cubs’ top arm out of the bullpen. In 13 appearances, he’s 2-0 with four saves, 25 strikeouts and just five walks in 31 innings, boasting a 0.87 ERA to boot. His ERA is best in the Big 8 and second in the CCAA.

In the most recent state rankings, released on Tuesday, SRJC came in at No. 16.

The Bear Cubs are on the road for their next two games but return to Santa Rosa for a conference matchup with third-place Cosumnes River on April 21.

SSU men’s golf wins CCAA title

With a strong final round at Yocha Dehe Golf Club on Wednesday, the Seawolves won the California Collegiate Athletic Association championship by 10 strokes. It’s their third conference title in program history and first since 2009.

The Seawolves shot a collective five over par 293 in the final round of play at the par 72 course in Brooks. While it wasn’t the low team score of the day, it still gave the Seawolves a final tally of 885, 10 strokes better than runner-up Chico State.

Griffin Pace shot a 2-under par 70 on Wednesday to finish tied for second overall in the three-round tournament with a 2-over par 218. The Seawolves had four golfers finish in the top 20 individually.

The Seawolves women, also competing at Yocha Dehe, finished fifth overall at the CCAA Championship. Samantha Cabunag bounced back from a first round 10-over par 82 with back-to-back rounds of 73 to finish third overall individually.

The Seawolves men now turn their attention to the NCAA West Regionals in Colorado from May 5-8, while the Seawolves women will wait to see if they receive an at-large bid to NCAA Regionals.

SSU softball on hot streak

The Seawolves are in the midst of their second lengthy winning streak of the season. After having an eight-game win streak snapped in a tournament at CSU-Stanislaus on April 1, the Seawolves have put together another eight-game winning streak which began with a 5-2 win over Concordia-Irvine, the No. 1 team in the nation.

The Seawolves have won 16 of their past 17 games to improve to 30-14 overall and 18-10 in the CCAA, good for third place in the conference standings. Most recently, they got a four-game sweep of CSU-Stanislaus last week.

Montgomery and SRJC grad Anna Zoia-Buescher leads the team with 48 hits and a .378 batting average.

The Seawolves’ next action will be a home doubleheader against Cal State East Bay

You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @JustGusPD.