Huskies Sweep Seahawks
by Stephen Morales @grecomeco23
Photos by Mario Villegas @marviljr
As the calendar turned to April, the East Los Angeles College Huskies Baseball team knew they need to start piling up wins in order to obtain a berth in the upcoming 3C2A state playoffs.
Having won two games in a row coming into a conference series with the Seahawks of Los Angeles Harbor College, the Huskies were also still waiting for the bats to break out in a big way.
Boy did they ever this week, as the Huskies scored a sweep of the Skyhawks outscoring the Skyhawks 27-6 during the week.
The series win improved the Huskies to 15-15 overall and 8-7 in conference and improved their win streak to five games.
Here is a brief recap of each game this series.
Tuesday April 1st at ELAC. ELAC 13-Harbor 4
Down 3-1 in the third inning, the Huskies bat suddenly came alive. Manny Ramirez Jr. got the scoring started tying the game with a two run homer that got the crowd buzzing. A few batters later, Chris Guardado would score on a wild pitch and the Huskies had their first lead of the day. Felipe De Alba would knock in a run, and score a run in the 5th and the Huskies were up six to three. The Huskies would hang a high-five in the 7th as Evan Chavez, Guardado and Matthew Vargas contributed to the RBI party. A triple by JR Kully in the 8th would knock in two more runs.
Starting pitcher Ricardo Villegas would overcome a shaky start to pitch 5.1 innings to earn the victory. Justin Cardenas and Tony Ponce would combine to finish off the victory.
Thursday April 3rd at LA Harbor. ELAC 15-Harbor 1
The Huskies did not wait around to score in the 2nd game. With bases loaded, both Jesse Rojas and Eddie Perez were hit by pitches scoring Vargas and James Vasquez. Ramirez would end the inning with a grand slam and the Huskies were up 7-0 in the second inning. Perez would score a run in the fifth inning and knock in two.
In The 6th inning, a double from Vasquez would score Ramirez, the first of five runs that inning, ending on a RBI triple from Rainer Gahagan to put the lead at 15-1.
Hector Valdez would turn in the best pitching performance of the week, tossing six innings and striking out six. Angel Serrano and Kellen Gewecke would cover the last three innings to give the Huskies the series victory.
Saturday April 5th at ELAC. ELAC 9-Harbor 1
The Huskies again decided to get the bats going early. Back to back doubles from Ramirez Jr. and Vasquez scored Evan Chavez and Ramirez. Jr for a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning.
Good old fashioned small ball dominated the 2nd inning as the Huskies worked counts and scored on infield singles, trading outs for runs, and ended on a booming double by Vargas for a six to zero lead after two innings.
The game would settle down at that point but Husky starter Jacob Ramos was already in control allowing only one run in six sharp and quick innings of work. Juan Contreras would earn the save with three innings of relief.
The final runs of the series came in the 7th inning with Matais Nolasco doubling in two runs and the final run scoring on a sacrifice fly from Evan Chavez.
UP NEXT:
A key three-game series with the 2nd-place Falcons of Cerritos College next week. East LA will visit Cerritos on 4/8 and 4/12 with the Falcons visiting ELAC on 4/10. A series win against the #4 CCCSIA state-ranked Falcons would go a long way to bolster the Huskies' playoff chances.