Cuesta Baseball has returned to the post-season for the first time since 2019 and is hosting #10-seed El Camino for a best-of-three CCCAA First Round Playoff Series this weekend.  The Cougars, ranked 21^st in the State and seeded 7^th in the Region, dropped the opening game to the Warriors, 15-14, in a game that was all offense.  Along with the 29 runs scored, the two teams combined for 34 hits and went through ten pitchers.  The visiting Warriors scored three runs in each of the first two inning to burst open the game, but the Cougars kept nipping at their heals until tying the game after the 7th-inning stretch on Shortstop Diego Murillo's (pict) two-RBI single.  In the 8th inning, First Baseman Holden Cumiskey established the Cougars' first lead of the contest with a 2-RBI Triple, but the Cougars could not hold the lead in the 9th.  El Camino's Daniel Murillo tied the game on a two-RBI Double and later scored to put the Cougars down a run heading into the last of the 9th.  Cuesta's Murillo re-tied the game after leading off the inning with a Single, before stealing second, advancing to 3rd on a wild pitch and scoring on a base-hit.  In the 10^th, the Warriors made the game's sixth lead change, when reserve Catcher Wilton Perez came around to score after leading off the inning with a hit by pitch, while Cuesta stranded Murillo at first base in their final at bat to end the contest.   El Camino's Murillo went 6-for-6, including two Doubles and a Triple, with four runs scored and five driven in, while his teammate Ethan Felix, who followed him in the lineup, added a 4-for-5 day with a run scored and four RBI to lead the Warriors.  The Cougars' corners kept them in the game until the end.  Third Baseman Zach Tallerman was 3-for-4, including two Doubles and a Home Run, with two runs scored and four driven in, while across the infield Cumiskey was 3-for-5, including his Triple, with two runs scored and four RBI.

El Camino took the early lead in the series, which continues this Saturday in SLO with Game 2 scheduled for 11 AM and Game 3, if needed, a half hour after the end of Game 2.