TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Scott Brattvet hasn’t been a fulltime starting pitcher since he was a freshman in high school.

He is now, and he had a memorable Division I debut Sunday afternoon.

The Roadrunners (1-1) used the pitching by Brattvet and Spenser Messmore and a six-run fourth inning to down Kansas State 7-3 at Hardt Field in the second game of the season.

The rubber game of the three-game, season-opening series will be today at 2 p.m.

“My senior year in high school was my last start,” said Brattvet, a junior right-hander who was a reliever at Santa Ana Junior College the last two seasons.

CSUB coach Bill Kernen made the decision to switch Brattvet from the bullpen to a starter.

“To go out and pitch against a Big 12 team in his first Division I game is quite an accomplishment. We’re very proud of him,” Kernen said.

Kernen said he envisioned Brattvet as a starter when he began recruiting him.

“He looks like a starting pitcher to me,” Kernen said. “He’s a big kid (6-foot-1, 190 pounds), has a good fastball and a good slider. I approached him about that as an option and I think that’s one of the reasons he came here.”

Messmore, a senior who has been with CSUB since the program’s inception four seasons ago, allowed one unearned run over the final three innings to pick up the save.

Kernen thought about using Messmore as a starting pitcher after the team lost all of its starting pitchers from last season.

“But he’s the most experienced guy we have and I need to have that in my back pocket all the time for a few games until I see what’s going on,” Kernen said.

Messmore throws strikes and is an excellent fielder, Kernen said.

“You could tell they were taking a strike the last two innings when they were down by five,” Kernen noted. “If you have a guy who gets behind (in the count) all the time, that’s their chance to get back in it.”

The Wildcats (1-1) scored in the top of the third when Brattvet hit Ross Kivett with a pitch, then committed a balk before Jake Brown’s RBI single.

But CSUB quickly tied it in the bottom of the third. Kevin Younger jumped all over what appeared to be a flat slider up in the strike zone and lined it into the left-center field alley for a triple. Younger scored on  Tyler Shryock’s infield grounder.

Younger had an RBI double during CSUB’s six-run fourth. Oscar Sanay had two singles in the inning and the Roadrunners had four singles, two doubles and a triple in the inning. The Roadrunners had seven hits and a sacrifice fly from the first eight batters that inning. They sent 11 to the plate.

“I feel good at the plate right now,” said Younger, a junior left fielder from Liberty High School. “I’m seeing the ball well. I put a lot of work in during the fall and it’s paying off right now.”

Kansas State stater Joe Flattery gave up five runs and took the loss in his first Division I game.

“He had different pitches, and after we saw him a couple of times we were able to hit him,” Younger said.

Kernen said he was excited about the third-inning run that tied the game 1-1.

“They scored first and then we came back and got one,” he said. “That was important. If someone scores, you come right back, you hold them and then you put up a 6?

“Now you’ve got, at least momentarily, control of the game. It’s up to the pitching after that.”

Brattvet allowed a run in the sixth when he had to work out of a two-out, bases-loaded situation that was the Wildcats’ best chance of getting back into it.

“One of the main things Kernen has us focus on is when we get into trouble, how do we react?” Brattvet said. “Getting out of it right there was huge.”

Messmore worked out of a two-on, one-out situation in the eighth and K-State had a threat in the ninth after an error and two singles. Messmore retired Mike Kindel, who launched a long home run in Saturday’s opener, to end the game with two runners on base.

“I was never close to having him come out,” Kernen said of Messmore. “I had (Korie) Walkley out there (warming up) just in case.

“These guys can hit. This is a very good offensive team out of the Big 12. You’ve got to make good pitches. If you don’t, they’ll hit it. We made some mistakes and they punished us (Saturday).”