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Photo by
Juan Velez.
Cerritos received free passes during
Saturday's gave vs Rio Hondo College
resulting in a 15-7 victory. |
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It looked as
though the Cerritos College baseball team was about
to suffer their second loss in a row, as they
trailed visiting Rio Hondo College, 7-2 after five
innings. The pitching had already surrendered six
hits, two hit batters, two errors and a walk. But as
soon as the Falcon batters started receiving free
passes from the Roadrunner pitchers, the game took a
different turn. By the end of the game, Cerritos had
scored 13 unanswered runs and recorded a 15-7 win,
in a game the team had received 14 walks and slapped
out just nine hits, while nine of the walks turned
into runs. The Falcons (2-1) will now host College
of the Canyons at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday.
Freshman pitcher
Skye Severns (Claremont HS)
showed that he had good stuff, but the Rio Hondo
batters were waiting for their pitches and scored
two unearned runs in the second and added five more
runs (two unearned) by the time he was taken out
after four innings. Unlike the day before when the
bullpen struggled to keep the team in the game, the
duo of freshmen Efren Gutierrez (Gahr
HS) and Chris Villalobos (El
Rancho HS) allowed just five hits over the
final five innings and completely shut down Rio
Hondo. Villalobos, who went the final 2 2/3 innings,
earned his first collegiate win.
Through the first
5 1/3 innings, the Cerritos batters were without a
hit, but had scored four runs, thanks to six walks,
a hit batter and a bases loaded balk. Freshman
outfielder Joe Terry (Long
Beach Poly HS) scored in the third inning after
walking, then moved to third on a wild pitch and
scored on a balk. Sophomore second baseman
Brandon Pesante (La Mirada HS),
who also walked in the inning, came home on an
infield out by freshman first baseman Josh
Bryan (La Mirada HS).
Bryan and
sophomore third baseman Brian Gaylord
(La Mirada HS) each drew one-out walks
before freshman outfielder David Neff
(John Glenn HS) singled into left field to
load the bases in the sixth inning. A walk to
freshman outfielder Jay Mayoral (Rocklin
HS) scored a run, before sophomore catcher
Paul Hayes (Bellflower HS)
drove in the team's fourth run with a sacrifice fly.
It was a 7-6 game later that inning when freshman
shortstop Max McEleney (Long
Beach Wilson HS) drove in a pair with a base
hit.
Cerritos tied the
game in the seventh inning on an RBI single by
freshman pinch-hitter Jacob Eaton (Calvary
Chapel HS), which drove in Gaylord. The Falcons
put eight runs on the board in the bottom of the
eighth inning to break the game open, with the big
hit being a bases loaded triple by freshman
outfielder Lemuel Johnson (Gahr
HS).
It appeared to be
an 8-7 Falcon lead in the eighth, but Roadrunner
third baseman Willie Sandez booted a bases loaded
ground ball by Neff that scored a run and kept the
inning alive. From that point forward, the Falcons
pounded out four straight hits, with Hayes and
McEleney each adding RBI base hits.
Johnson (2-for-2,
3 RBI), McEleney (2-for-5, 3 RBI), Hayes (2 RBI),
Pesante (1-for-2, 3 walks) and Gaylord (1-for-3, 2
walks, 3 runs) all had good games. On the day,
Cerritos drew 14 walks and were hit by two pitches.
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