July 29, 2018 Thousand Oaks, CA Jordan McFarland (Arkansas) had four hits, including a pair of RBI-singles in his first two at bats, Brandon Lewis (UC Irvine) hit a two-run home run and Gerry Ramirez (Glendale JC) pitched six innings of one-run ball to lead the Coenjo Oaks to a 6-2 win over the Orange County Riptide today at Sparky Anderson Field, claiming the 2018 CCL Championship, the club's first league title in their 13-year existence. McFarland, who was named the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs, drove in the first Oaks run of the game, hitting an RBI-single that scored Lewis, who had reached on a two-base error, from second base. McFarland's second RBI-single drove in Michael Spears (Ole Miss), who had tripled with one out in the third inning, to put the Oaks up 3-1 after Orange County scored once in the bottom of the first on a two-out RBI-single by Austin Sojka (OK Wesleyan) and after Conejo scored once in the second when Sam Shaikin (Valparaiso) walked with one out, stole second base, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on an Andrew Lucas (Northridge) single. Ramirez, who started on the mound for the Oaks, threw five scoreless innings with two strikeouts after surrendering the first inning run, not facing more than four batters in any of the five innings and allowing only one runner, Sojka, who doubled with two outs in the sixth inning, to get into scoring position. By the time Ramirez turned the pitching duties over to the Oaks bullpen the score was 4-1 as Shaikin again walked and scored in the sixth inning, advancing to third this time on a Zach Kaminkow (UNLV) double and scoring on a squeeze bunt by Will Picketts (Bakersfield). John Vergara was the first Oaks reliever of the game, allowing two walks and a two-out single by Steve Curry (Georgia Southern) but escaped surrendering a run when Lucas fielded Curry's hit in left field and threw out Thomas Delgadilo who tried to score from second base. Nick Rincover (Pierce College) then pitched around a one-out single by Mason McWhorter (Georgia Southern) to throw a scoreless eighth inning and retired the first two batters he faced in the ninth before Josh Nicoloff (Columbia) doubled and scored on an RBI-single by Aaron Simpson (Ball St) to make the score 6-2. Angus Denton (Arkansas) relieved Rincover and retired the only batter he faced to close out the win. Ryan Sublette (Texas Tech) started on the mound for Orange County, allowing three runs on four hits while striking out three in three innings. Corey Dawson (Westmont College) relieved Sublette to start the fourth inning and allowed three runs, including surrendering a two-run home run by Lewis in the ninth inning, on six hits while striking out three in five and a third innings before turning the pitching duties over to Tyler Frazier (Oregon) who pitched around a single and an error to record the final two outs without allowing any further damage. The Oaks, the No. 4 seeded team in the playoffs, won three must-win games to win the championship. They beat the Healdsburg Prune Packers 9-6 Friday in a win that edged the San Luis Obispo Blues for the fourth and final berth to the playoffs, and then they beat the Santa Barbara Foresters, the No. 1 seeded team, 3-2 to advance to today's game. Orange County was the No. 2 seed in the playoffs and today's loss snapped a three-game streak in which they won each game in their last at bat, beating Healdsburg on Thursday when McWhorter hit a walk-off home run to leadoff the bottom of the ninth inning, beating the Academy Barons Friday when Sojka hit a walk-off home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, and beating Healdsburg yesterday by scoring nine runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to win 11-9. Click here for the boxscore of this game