Great hitting combined with stellar pitching is all the Warriors baseball team needed to win its first conference game of the season, against Pasadena 7-2.
The team will now take its fourgame winning streak on consecutive road games when they play Saturday at noon against Cerritos College.
“We split two games against Cerritos in the fall, and they’re obviously a much better team than Pasadena,” coach Tom Bergeron said. “We’re playing at their place so it should be a good ball game.”
EC will travel Tuesday to play against Los Angeles City College at 2 p.m.
The Warriors’ offense scored a run in the second inning, three in the fifth and seventh innings and recorded 13 hits to take a 7-2 victory against the Lancers at home.
Despite allowing two runs in the top of the ninth inning, the Warriors’ bullpen controlled the tempo of the game as starting pitcher Jeff McKinley contributed five strikeouts in his six scoreless innings, allowing only three hits, no walks and zero runs.
“McKinley came out very solid,” Bergeron said. “He mixed up his pitches pretty well, and was able to dominate their batters. Overall, the pitching came out strong.”
The bullpen, which relieved McKinley in the seventh inning, kept Pasadena at only two runs on three hits, and issued two walks while striking out one.
“As a pitcher, you have to get ahead of the count,” McKinley said. “We were able to get some groundballs and our infield was able to do the rest as we had great defense.”
Defense was not the only contributing factor to the EC win.
Infielder Mike Zaunich led the way for Warriors, as he went three for four collecting an RBI, a triple, two doubles, and scored three of the seven runs.
“I’m just looking to drive the ball at every at bat,” Zaunich said. “I just have to get more comfortable on my stance and go from there.”
Not far behind him was catcher Felipe Aguilar who also went three for four driving in two runs on three singles
He scored in a run, stealing a base and took one in the arm as he was hit by a pitch late in the bottom of the fourth inning.
The Lancers’ offense was never able to keep up with the Warriors’.
The offense was shutdown by the defense during eight scoreless innings.
Allowing two errors is what led to the only two runs for the visiting team during the top ninth of the inning.
The Lancers’ defense did not help out their team at all, as they had four errors, while their pitchers threw as many balls as they did strikes, walking four batters and hitting two.
EC’s pitching came out more focused as they threw 60 strikes and 49 balls, managing to strike out six of Pasadenas batters.
Prior to Tuesday’s game, the Warriors added to their winning total, as they edged out Rio Hondo Thursday on the road, 3-2.
Trailing late in the game, the Warriors scored three runs in the top of the eight inning to overcome a one to nothing deficit.
Shane Cauley went three for five with two doubles and a run in that game, while Billy Hernandez had a key pinch-hit double which led to the go-ahead run. EC’s pitching allowed only five hits and managed to maintain the lead in the ninth inning allowing only one run.
With this victory, EC obtained its fourth consecutive win, improving its overall record to 5-5.
The win also gave the Warriors their first conference win.
“It feels really good to win our first conference game,” Zaunich said. “We’re just getting on a roll right now, and are looking forward for many more victories.”
Last year, the Warriors dropped their first two conference games, a reason some of the players and coaches think they did not win the conference.
“We had such a good team last year, and to drop the first two games of the season was hard for us,” Bergeron said. “So just for this team to come out here and win our first conference game at home, it means a lot to us.”
The next two games involving conference teams, EC isn’t trying to get ahead of itself and is only trying to take one game at a time.
“Cerritos is a tough team,” Zaunich said. “We just have to go out there and hit the ball like we know we can.”
