Alex Mistuloff, starting pitcher, was in a tight jam in the sixth inning when there were men and second and first with no outs after walking the first two batters.
The next batter bunted the ball toward third base and the only play was to first base for third baseman Atlee Schwab. As Schwab charged toward the ball, he knew he had to rush the throw. He fielded the ball cleanly and threw an off-balance throw to first base.
Garrett Cooper, first baseman, tried to stretch his legs and catch the wildly thrown ball. The ball ended up bouncing by him and both of the runners scored on the error by Schwab.
The inning finally came to a close and EC was down 6-2. The Warriors wound up losing 8-2 to the Cerritos College Falcons last Saturday.
“We just played poorly,” coach Nate Fernley said. “We had that sixth inning where we gave up three runs and they didn’t even get a hit. We gave up a walk and then a walk and then threw the ball away and then the next inning it was a walk, walk and then we threw a double play away.”
“We gave up five runs and that was the difference in the game,” he said.
The next game for the Warriors will be today as the Mt. San Antonio College Mounties will host EC at 6 p.m.
“Errors happen and you’re not gonna score a whole bunch of runs every game but we could still move forward from this and look to beat Mt. SAC.”
EC’s record dropped to 7-15 while only winning one of its nine conference games. The only conference win came from the game against L.A. Harbor College, winning 5-4 in 12 innings.
“It was rough,” assistant coach Nick Jones said. “Early on we had some good at-bats and walks, which we have not done in a while, but we had too many mental mistakes and we did not score enough runs.”
The Warriors have lost 11 of the last 12 games with nine of those losses being decided by three runs or fewer.
“We’re in it almost every game,” Fernley said. “This is probably our biggest blowout out of our losses. We’re a run away but we usually give up two or three runs a game by making dumb mistakes. So if we eliminate that, those one-run games go our way.”
Mistuloff, who has been a relief pitcher this season, pitched seven innings allowing six runs with three of them earned; the defense did not help him much with two costly errors.
“He was throwing strikes,” catcher Marvin Flores said. “He was in the bullpen for the whole season and this was his first start. He did well though.”
The Warriors had the first lead of the game when they scored in the first inning. Outfielder Jeff Dorman hit a single and advanced to second by a groundout by Ives.
With Dorman in scoring position, Cooper came up to bat. He fouled pitch after pitch off the Falcons’ starting pitcher Jacob Bell. Finally, as he was fighting to stay alive, hit a single up the middle which drove in Dorman; that was Cooper’s only hit of the game as he went one for five.
“We just have to move forward,” Jones said. “Whe can’t control what has already been done. You can only move forward from here and it’s just about really sticking to what we do. The hardest aprt is not getting caught up in all those losses”
Twelve men were left on base for the Warriors while only six men were left on base for the Falcons.
“That’s the story of our season,” Jones said “We’ve made so many mistakes every game. If we just stay locked in mentally and take some good at-bats and do what we’re suppossed to do, we can put up another winning streak.”
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