The Warriors’ baseball team hosted the Barstow Vikings at home Tuesday, shutting them out 6-0.
The Warriors played a solid game all day, recording two runs in the first two innings, and then two more runs in the fifth inning. The Warriors recorded ten hits on the day against Vikings pitchers Austin Crank and Nick Winkler, the former giving up seven hits, six runs, and four walks before being replaced by the latter.
The Warriors also were able to capitalize off of four errors made by the away team. The first came in the bottom of the first inning when sophomore center fielder Joseph Cortez advanced to second base off of a wild pitch. The very next play was an error by the pitcher that helped freshman second baseman Ricardo Serrano make it to second, and Cortez to score to give the Warriors an early 1-0 lead.
The next profitable error came in the bottom of the fifth inning when freshman leftfielder Jonathan Pasillas scored from second base after an error made by Vikings second baseman on a fly-out by freshman first baseman Jake Sahagian, giving the Warriors their final run to close 6-0.
The other four runs came from the Warriors capitalizing off of runners on base in scoring positions. In the bottom of the first, sophomore shortstop Fred Smith recorded one of his two doubles on the day to bring in Serrano for the 2-0 lead.
The next came in the bottom of the second inning, with bases loaded, Serrano hit a ground ball to the shortstop, reaching first on a fielder’s choice, while freshman right fielder Sebastian Sanchez advanced to third and freshman third baseman Tyler Martizia scored. The Warriors followed it with Smith’s second double for the day, bringing in Sanchez to score.
The other run was recorded when Smith hit a lead-off triple in the bottom of the fifth inning, which was then followed by a double by Pasillas that brought in Smith for the score.
The Warriors’ pitcher, Chris Alcala, pitched a valiant game against the Vikings. In the seven innings pitched, he gave up only seven hits and no runs, earning a very strong victory. He felt his whole team did well today.
“We executed offensively and we made great plays defensively,” Alcala said. “Overall, it was a good team effort.”
Alcala feels the major thing his team needs to work on is getting more consistent on scoring with runners in position, although he feels they did well today.
Warriors coach Nate Fernley had very positive things to say about his team’s work in the game.
“We pitched a great game and we played good defense,” Fernley said. “We didn’t give up any errors and threw a lot of strikes.”
He spoke of the team’s need to leave less runners on base, especially with runners in scoring positions with less than two outs.
Freshman second baseman Ricardo Serrano felt his team hit the ball well against the Vikings, doing well to take advantage of errors made by the other team. He said the turning point in the game was sophomore shortstop Fred Smith’s lead-off triple in the bottom of the fifth.
The Warriors improve their record to 7-2, and will host Imperial Valley Thursday Feb. 19.
