Huskies Finally Combine Pitching with Offense for Win over SBVC

by Cerwin D Haynes

February is famous for Valentine's Day, but the month has shown no love for East Los Angeles College baseball. With a 3-10 record for the month (including 1-6 in conference play), the team has had a hard time aligning their pitching, hitting and defensive efforts: when they executived well in one area, they've faltered in the others, particularly with their pitching.

Not the case tonight, thankfully.

The Huskies (8-11, 1-6) were able to combine timely hitting, smart baserunning, good defense and clutch pitching to overwhelm visiting San Bernardino Valley College (5-15, 0-6) 10-1. Sophomore Starting RHP Julian Hernandez gutted out five innings of one-run ball for the win (2-1), while freshman 2B Matias Nolasco went 2-4 with two doubles and four RBI.

The game's first inning served as a good microcosm to the flow of the game:

• SBVC had runners at the corners with in the top half of the inning with two outs, and tried a delayed double steal. Joseph Guzman - the runner at first - appeared to draw the ELAC infielders into a rundown. But the Huskies realized just in time that it was a ploy to allow Jason Del Villar to steal home. 1B Anthony Barron threw home and C Christian Navarro tagged Del Villar before he could cross the plate.
• With their turn at the plate, East LA got opportunistic to push three runs across the plate. The first two batters got hits to get men on first and third - singles by sophomore SS Amaris Harrison and freshman 3B Evan Chavez. Chavez then stole second to eliminate the double-play grounder, which was opportune because the next batter, freshman CF Cole Carmichael, grounded to short. With no force available at second, SBVC's Cy Robinson had to throw to first to get Carmichael while Harrison scored from third. Chavez advanced to third, and was next to cross home plate on a sac fly by freshman DH Manny Ramirez Jr. Freshman LF Eddie Perez was next up, and he singled to center. Barron followed by hitting a ground ball deep to Wolverine 2b Zachary Marquez, who's throw to first pulled the first baseman off the bag; Barron reached safely while Perez advanced to third. A wild pitch during Navarro's at bat allowed Perez to score.

The general theme of the Huskies taking advantage of opportunity while denying SBVC the chance to do the same repeated itself throughout the game. To wit: Hernandez threw 106 pitches (58 strikes) in five innings of work, and gave up seven hits and five walks. Typically that's a recipe for a disastrous outing, but the righthander had good defense behind him and helped himself with strikeouts with the bases loaded to escape multiple jams (five strikeouts total).

HUSKY BITS

• Sophomore RF Matthew McIntire went 1-2 with two walks and two runs scored. Navarro also crossed the plate twice to score a pair of runs.
• Sophomore P Lino Zepeda, who had been out with an injury for the past four weeks, returned to pitch two excellent innings of scoreless relief. He had four strikeouts, and 20 of his 27 pitches were thrown for strikes.
• ELAC turned double-plays in each of the first and ninth innings.
• The Huskies defeated the Wolverines out in San Bernardino on Tuesday by a score of 13-4. They outscored SBVC 23-5 in sweeping the home-and-home series.

UP NEXT:

The Huskies have the extended weekend to practice and hope that this past week starts their turnaround. They go back into conference play next week with a three-game set against Compton College. The Pack will play at Compton on Tuesday March 12 and Saturday March 16, and will host Thursday March 14.