Cole Eigenhuis threw a complete-game, four-hit shutout as Benicia High’s varsity baseball team rolled past host Fairfield on Wednesday, 7-0.

Eigenhuis needed to throw only 74 pitches and pitched to three over the minimum while recording the shutout. The sophomore struck out eight, didn’t walk a batter and improved to 2-0 with a 1.50 earned-run average.

“He was on his game and was throwing strikes,” said Benicia manager Jim Bowles. “He was in a great rhythm and showed a lot of maturity for a sophomore.”

Fairfield never had more than one base runner in any inning, and those runners didn’t stay on base for long thanks to sophomore catcher Ethan Payne. Justin Nehring led off the bottom of the fifth with single but was caught stealing on a strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play. Anthony Canavesio led off the sixth with a double but was thrown out at third by Payne after another strikeout.

“Cole did a good job of holding the runners close, and when they’d take off, Ethan was on the money every time,” Bowles said.

A Fairfield error with the bases loaded allowed Benicia’s Armani Dickerson to score in the top of the second, and the Panthers broke the game open with four more runs an inning later. Xian Covington-Hunt and Isiah Saguar stroked one-out singles, and after a two-out walk to Dickerson loaded the bases, Riley Pitkin promptly cleared them with a three-run double. Jack Bowles followed with an RBI single to make it 5-0.

Jason Toumbs lifted a sacrifice fly that scored Anthony Altman in the sixth inning, and Saguar scored in the seventh inning on Fairfield’s thid error of the day.

“We played very aggressive and we looked really sharp all the way around,” Bowles said. “The bottom of the order has been very productive while the top of the order has been very consistent.”

The Panthers improved to 6-4 overall and 3-1 in the Solano County Athletic Conference, one game behind Vanden for first place. Benicia hosts Vallejo in a SCAC game on Friday, then takes on Casa Roble in a Saturday morning game at Raley Field in Sacramento.

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