Glendora, CA (Baseball) -- The Citrus College baseball team used a sixth run fourth inning, that featured two home-runs to help propel them to a 8-5 win over West LA College on Saturday afternoon. The win was Citrus’ sixth victory in their last eight contests.
West LA would get on the scoreboard first, grabbing a run in each of the first two innings of the game. The Oilers first run came off the bat of Mark Sunga who sent a double off the left-center field wall scoring West LA’s Milan Depillars from second base. Their run in the second would be a solo shot from first baseman Alex Coons, who sent a home-run sailing over the left-center field wall.
With West LA jumping out to an early lead, the Fighting Owls struggled to answer. Twice in the first three innings, Citrus would have bases loaded, and both times they came up empty. It wasn’t until the fourth inning that they were able to cross home plate.
With nobody on and two outs, Vince Prado got the Owls rolling with a double off the left field wall. The very next batter, Manny Martinez, brought Prado home with a single to shallow left field. With Martinez still standing on first, Citrus’ home-run leader Damien Chavez strolled to the plate and swatted a deep fly ball to center field that cleared the fence in the deepest part of the field for his sixth big fly of the season.
Citrus didn’t stop there though, as Scott Vincent and Julio Raymundo hit back to back singles to left field, placing runners on first and second with sophomore Tony Mancuso coming to the dish. Mancuso made the most of the situation, hitting Citrus’ second home-run of the inning, as he sent the West LA pitch over the left field fence, giving the Fighting Owls a 6-2 advantage.
After giving up two early runs, Citrus starter Michael Ahumada cruised through the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth innings. In that span, Ahumada faced just 15 batters, three over the minimum, struck out four, and gave up no runs.
Ahumada would continue hitting his stride in the seventh inning as well. After giving up a lead off double to West LA’s Brett Halstead, Ahumada retired the next two batters with a ground-out and a strike-out. With the runner now over at third and two outs, Ahumada got into a bit of trouble allowing the runner to score and eventual the bases to load up. He finally got out the jam however, getting the Oilers’ Ricky Gutierrez to fly out to the center fielder, ending the inning and the threat.
After finding trouble in the seventh, Ahumada picked up right where he left off in the sixth, getting the first batter in the eighth to ground out, and then after giving up a single, striking out the next two batters.
With two more runs added to his cushion in the bottom of the eighth, Ahumada took the hill in the ninth, with an 8-3 lead, and chance to finish out his complete game. Ahumada struck out two of the first three batters he faced, but gave up a two run bomb to the fourth batter, Mark Sunga that brought the Oilers to within three runs at 5-8.
After the home-run Ahumada’s day would be done, as he gave way to freshman Aaron Illhareguy who walked the first batter he faced. After walking the batter, Illhareguy came out, and in came Citrus closer Steven Becerra. Becerra gave up an infield single to the first batter, but got the second to ground out to him, ending the game en route to his fifth save of the season.
With the win Citrus improves to 15-15 on the season and 6-8 in WSC South play. The Fighting Owls will be back on the road next Tuesday as they travel north to play Bakersfield College. First pitch is set for 5:30 PM.
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