Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Caleb Ruiz reacts during Friday’s doubleheader with Los Medanos at Bomber Field in Eureka.

Despite dropping two of three games at home to Los Medanos this weekend, the Corsairs are off to their best start to a baseball season in 21 years.

College of the Redwoods, which begins Golden Valley Conference play at Lassen next weekend, is a solid 7-5, its best pre-league record since 1999.

The starting pitching has played a big role in the early going, and head coach Brad Morgan is happy with the progress his players have been making.

“Our starting pitching has been huge, and we’ve been able to go deep in games,” he said. “And offensively we’ve come around a lot.

“We had some rough defense last week, but we played better this week and it’s nice to see us playing more complete games overall.”

The Corsairs have been tested early, matching up this weekend against a Los Medanos team that made the playoffs a year ago.

The Corsairs took opening game of a doubleheader on Friday 10-5, before dropping the nightcap 14-5, and losing a close one on Saturday 4-3.

Bly Moser pitched well for CR in the series finale, holding the visitors scoreless until they hit a two-out grand slam in the top of the eighth.

The Corsairs responded with three runs in the final inning, but it was as close as they would get.

Caleb Ruiz also pitched well in Friday’s loss, but some mental errors by the team late in the game, coupled with some solid hitting by the visitors, proved costly for the CR men.

Roman Garcia, Charles Morgan and Ruiz all had multiple hits in the loss, as CR led 5-3 in the sixth before the late letdown.

The Corsairs look on during game one of this weekend’s series on Friday afternoon.

“We just struggled to finish the game,” Morgan said. “It’s just a matter of cleaning up our game a bit and we should be fine.

“We probably should have won two of those games, and we had the opportunity to win all three, but it’s all about finishing the game.”