El Camino’s baseball team extend win streak in blowout win against Rio Hondo
El Camino Warriors starting pitcher, Jack Snyder (19), during the top of the third inning on Thursday, March 10 at Warrior Field. Snyder hurled 102 pitches, giving up five hits against the Rio Hondo Roadrunners. Vitor Fernandez | The Union.
The El Camino College Warriors extended its baseball win streak to five games after an 11-4 win against the Rio Hondo Roadrunners on Thursday, March 10 at Warrior Field.
The streak comes after El Camino’s three-game sweep against the Santa Barbara Vaqueros and a 4-2 win against the Roadrunners Tuesday, March 8.
The Warriors struck the first blow in the bottom of the first inning with a slew of hits and walks, exploiting the defensive errors made by the Roadrunners earning them a hefty five run lead to put them ahead early on.
The Roadrunners’ offense hit back against the Warriors’ starting pitcher Jack Snyder, a freshman at El Camino College, as he was struggling to find his footing against the experienced Rio Hondo lineup allowing three runs in the top of the third inning.
“I didn’t have the best stuff on the mound today,” Snyder said, “but the main thing is to just get the dub.”
El Camino’s Snyder allowed five hits through six innings pitched, clearing the way for a couple of errors and three runs scored by the Roadrunners, two of them earned. Overall, he threw 102 pitches, facing 23 players at the plate, walking one and striking out six.
“I just had to work through every count and every batter and I just did my job,” Snyder said.
Warriors catcher Jorge Alonso Renteria felt part of the blame was on him, as he allowed a wild pitch to go past him in the top of the third inning allowing the Roadrunner’s shortstop, Stephen Chavez, to score a run.
“I feel like defensively, I could have put my body on the line for a couple more balls, sacrificing myself,” Renteria said, “I had a couple of slips today, putting some runs on the board for them.”
That concern would soon be swept away as during his next at-bat Renteria would crack a two-run blast to left field for his first homerun of the season against Roadrunners relief pitcher, J.J. Gonzales, bringing in baserunner Ethan Felix who was hit by a pitch.
“It’s pretty surreal, me and my dad were just talking about [how] I needed to get a ball out,” Renteria said as he was handed his homerun ball by a teammate, “it’s just funny it happened today.”
The Warriors continued to strike against the Roadrunners, adding an additional three runs in the remaining innings with a two-run RBI on a single through the middle by outfielder Jonah Storey and a solo-blast by left fielder Ben Griffin to left center.
The Roadrunners would only be able gain one additional run off a double play, with the runner on third scoring.
“I feel like we’re doing a pretty good job right now. The good thing about young teams is that late in the season they become pretty old,” Warriors coach Nate Fernley said. “I do think we’ll have a lot of guys on this team transfer to four-year schools, so I think it’s fun to watch up and down the lineup.”
The Warriors, whose current season score is 14-6, are hoping to continue the win streak on the road and sweep Rio Hondo, for the third and last game of the series on Saturday at noon.
The Warriors also continue to have baseball superfans and former El Camino College students Bill Brocato and George Guerrero follow the team to every game and believe that this team will be going far this season.
“These guys are young, we got to really cheer them on,” Brocato said. “Once a Warrior, always a Warrior.”
Editors Note: The grammatical use of “who” was changed to “whose” on the third to last paragraph for clarity on March 12 at 2:20 a.m.
