Glendora, CA (Baseball) – Citrus College’s Thomas Korn may be the best pitcher in the Southern California Junior College system to not have a win. Korn, who owns the best ERA for all Citrus pitchers, was 0-5 coming into today’s match-up with LA Valley. Korn did his best, pitching 9 full innings, striking out 5 batters, and giving up only 7 hits and 2 runs. It wasn’t enough however as the Owls stranded 8 runners on base in their 2-1 loss.
The Fighting Owls came out of the box blazing, spraying hits all over the field, but the Owls fell short when it came into driving in those runners on base. The Owls put together 8 hits, but only 1 RBI in the loss.
The Owls scored their lone run in the bottom of the 2nd inning, when Jacob Medina singled to right field to kick things off for Citrus. The next batter, Jason McClellan, moved Medina over to second on a sacrifice, before Dennis Dunn came up two batters later and stroked a deep double to left-center field. The shot scored Medina, giving the Owls a 1 run lead going into the top of the 3rd, where Valley would inflict damage of their own.
After Korn got the first batter to pop up to first base, he proceeded to give up a single and a double putting runners on second and third with only one out. Korn then made a mistake that has plagued Citrus pitching all year long, as he balked, scoring the runner on third base, and moving the man on second to third. The very next pitch Valley got their game winning run as JP Hollywood drilled Korn’s pitch to left field scoring the runner on third.
From that point on Korn and the Citrus defense proved solid as it only allowed three more base runners on the rest of the game, including only one runner who advanced past 1st base. As for the Owls offense, Citrus was able to put 9 more runners on the base paths after the top of the 3rd, but was never able to score any runs to pull out the win.
In the loss the Fighting Owls fall to 5-15 overall and 2-4 in WSC South play. Korn’s record falls to 0-6. The Fighting Owls will be at home again on Thursday as it plays host to Glendale for a 2:00 PM match-up.
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