Benicia High’s varsity baseball team suffered through its worst performance of the season last Saturday and lost at home to the Vacaville Bulldogs, 10-6.

BENICIA’S JASON TOUMBS makes a play at first base against Vacaville last Saturday. Toumbs went 2-for-4 at the plate and drove in two runs but it wasn’t enough as the Panthers lost to Vacaville, 10-6, for their second straight defeat.

It was the second straight loss for the Panthers, who opened the season with six straight victories.

“We’d been playing so well all year and today we didn’t play well,” noted Benicia manager Jim Bowles. “I think we learned if we don’t play fundamental baseball, we’re not very good. We walked too many guys and made too many errors.”

Benicia starting pitcher Matt Brown allowed only two hits in four innings but walked five and left trailing 3-2. Reliever Taylor Greene got tagged for seven runs over the next 1 1/3 innings, with only two of those runs being earned. The Panthers out-hit Vacaville, 10-6, but committed six errors leading to six unearned runs.

“When things started to go bad, things just snowballed,” Bowles said.

Benicia took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first inning thanks to back-to-back RBI doubles by Ryan Galiza and Fred Williams. The Panthers didn’t score again until the bottom of the seventh on RBI hits by Jason Ramirez, Jaden Lane and Jason Toumbs.

Anthony Clyma went 3-for-4 and scored two runs. Jack Bowles pitched 1 2/3 innings of hitless, scoreless relief.

Benicia (6-2) gets back into Solano County Athletic Conference action today at home against the Vanden Vikings. Both teams are 3-0 in the SCAC.

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