A successful fifth inning and pitching skills helped City College baseball come back to beat Cerro Coso College 12-5, giving the team its second straight win on Wednesday afternoon at Pershing Park.
The Vaqueros are now undefeated at home with a record of 4-0. They lost at Cerro Coso 12-10 earlier in February.
The weather was hot but the Vaquero bats were even hotter as they had a season high of 18 hits and tied a season high with 12 runs scored. They scored five runs in the fifth inning, took the lead and quickly gained command of the entire game.
“We just came out aggressive,” said Wesley Ghan-Gibson (no.7). “It was awesome.”
Ghan-Gibson had a season high five hits on the day with two runs batted in and four runs scored. He has been tearing the cover off of the ball these past few games.
Another strong performance by the relief pitcher was key to the win. They came in and completely shut down the Cerro Coso batters. At one point they had retired 13 straight players.
Jonathan Keller (no.41), Jake Keily (no. 32) and Brandon Luper (no.27) came in and shut down a Cerro Coso team that has one of the best offenses in the country. They pitched well after a rough start by starting pitcher Elliott Reese (no.26).
“We need more out of our starting pitchers,” City College head coach Jeff Walker said.
Five players had at least two hits and four players drove in more than two runs. Andrew Schatz (no.28) and John Jensen (no.13) each had three hits.
“It was good to see some bats come alive today,” Walker said.
Cerro Coso started the game off on a high note by smacking 11 hits in the first four innings and jumping off to a 5-2 lead. “They came ready to hit,” Walker said.
The Vaqueros hot hitting definitely made the relief pitcher’s jobs a lot easier as they had a good amount of run support to work with as the game progressed.
“We go their [pitchers] back out there,” Ghan-Gibson said.
The bats are starting to come alive for the Vaqueros at the right time as they near the start of conference play. They will end this week with three consecutive games.
“We need to just keep building off wins,” Shane Hersh (no.8) said.
Hersh had two hits and two runs batted in on the day.
City College will play again at 2 p.m. Thursday, March, 2 at Fullerton. They will return home to start a series at 2:30 p.m Friday, March, 3 against Reedley College .
The Vaqueros will begin conference play with a home game against Allan Hancock on Tuesday, March, 7.
