By Kari Peterson

The Davis High freshmen finished the 2013 baseball season in top form, capturing both ends of a home-and-home series against Whitney last week — 10-8 and 6-3.

Coach David Watts said he was pleased with his Blue Devils as they completed the league slate with an 8-3 record (11-9 overall).

In the match-up at Playfields Park (May 6), the Wildcats put a quick run on the board, but the Devils were ready to battle …

With one out, Glen Welch (hitting .375 on the season) ripped a line drive up the middle to start a six-hit, five-run first-inning rally. Back-to-back RBI singles from Gavin Cosgrave (.375) and Pierce Tujo plated Daniel Henrickson (who’d reached on an error) and Welch.

Greg Rohnstock (walk) came in on a Mason Shorts fielder’s choice and Cosgrave scored when Alex Halford singled.

Tujo then came home when Alex Timmons — who led the Blue Devil offense all season and finished the year at .391 — lined sharply up the middle on his second at-bat of the inning.

With the bases now loaded, Henrickson’s walk brought in Dan Shuman (who’d also walked) to give the locals a 6-1 lead.

Whitney bounced back with three runs in the second inning and two in the third to tie the game at 6-6 after three innings.

Davis reclaimed the lead in the bottom of the fourth when Rohnstock — whose bat heated up in the last quarter of the season — blasted a double to dead center, advanced on Tujo’s grounder and scored on Shorts’ infield single.

But a determined Whitney went up by one in the following frame.

Once again, however, back came the Devils. Jake Guerrero was hit by a pitch to open the fifth inning then Timmons’ sac bunt and Henrickson’s opposite-field fly moved him into scoring position. Rohnstock walked to load the bases, setting up Cosgrave’s RBI hit-by-pitch, evening the score again.

Freshman lefty Josh Milenbach, who’d come on in relief in the fourth, held the Wildcats to a hitless/scoreless sixth and the locals got to work in the bottom half of the inning.

Noah Riffle opened with a single, and eventually scored after walks to Timmons, Henrickson and Gabe Gutierrez. DHS’ Brendon Tull lined up the middle to score Timmons, which gave the locals a two-run advantage.

Milenbach fanned the side in the seventh, picking up the save.

One day later, the Blue Devils traveled to Rocklin and played a smart, errorless game.

Tull (3-for-3) led off the first inning with a liner to left, quickly stole second and reached third on a Guerrero grounder to short. Tull and Milenbach scored on Peter Frame’s liner to left before Shorts singled to load the bases. Everyone advanced on a wild pitch — with Frame coming home — and Gutierrez’s flare to shallow right scored two more.

Whitney looked ready for a fight, opening their half of the inning with a line-drive single and a towering triple, but Davis starter Riffle held them to two runs in that first frame.

For the game, Riffle gave up only three hits before leaving in the fourth.

The Devil second inning was scoreless — despite Ben Harvey’s line-drive single to left and Tull beating out a bunt — but more tallies came in the third when Shorts reached on an error, stole second and scored on Richardson’s triple. Richardson came home on Gutierrez’s second single of the game (his third RBI) and DHS went ahead 6-2.

Whitney put a run on the board in the fourth, but Davis relievers Guerrero and Tujo shut them down, giving up only one hit in their combined four innings on the mound. Fittingly, the last out of the freshman season was a looking strikeout, delivered by the Blue Devil ace, Tujo, who finished the year with a 2.31 ERA in 42 1/3 innings pitched.

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