 |
Photo by
Juan Velez.
Chris Villalobos allowed just two hits
through six innings; however, it wasn't
enough as Long Beach came away with a 4-3
victory over Cerritos. |
|
More
Photos |
|
With a shot at
moving into at least a tie for first place in the
South Coast Conference, the Cerritos College
baseball team dropped a 4-3 game against Long Beach
City at Kincaid Field on Tuesday afternoon. With the
win, the Vikings earn at least a share of the
conference championship, while the Falcons are still
fighting for their playoff lives. Cerritos closes
out the season on Thursday and Friday with a
home-and-home series against eighth place Los
Angeles City, while Long Beach City ends their
regular season at 26-16 overall and 17-7 in the SCC.
The Falcons (24-15, 14-8), who host the Cubs at 2:30
p.m. on Thursday, came into the game tied with El
Camino College (14-7), while fourth place Mt. San
Antonio College was right behind at 13-8.
Cerritos took a
2-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning when
freshman shortstop
Max
McEleney (Long Beach Wilson HS)
singled and came home on a triple by freshman second
baseman
Joe Terry
(Long Beach Poly HS). The three-base hit by
Terry tied the school's single-season record of 13
with Ron Ewart, who had 13 in 1985.
Sophomore outfielder
David Neff
(John Glenn HS) followed with an RBI base
hit.
Freshman starting
pitcher
Chris
Villalobos (El Rancho HS) was
cruising through the first six inning, allowing the
Vikings just two hits. But in the seventh inning,
Hector Irbe and Trevor Costin opened with base hits.
After a sacrifice bunt by Randy Guite advanced the
runners, Ivan Niebla drove a fly ball to center
field. It looked as though
Jake
Mayoral (Rocklin HS) was going
to catch up to the ball, but the wind blew it over
his head and both runs scored. On the play, McEleney
tried to cut down Niebla at third base, but his
throw went into the dugout, which allowed Niebla to
score.
The Vikings added
an insurance run in the eighth inning when Matt
Homstad singled, stole second base, advanced to
third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on an infield
out by Irbe.
In the bottom of
the ninth inning, Falcon freshman first baseman
Josh Bryan (La Mirada HS) hit
a two-out solo home run off Viking pitcher Chris
Mieszala to get the score to 4-3. Mayoral was then
walked and advanced to second base on a wild pitch.
But McEleney struck out to end the game and Meiszala
earned the complete-game win to improve his record
to 4-2, while Villalobos slipped to 9-3.
|
