Cerritos, CA (Baseball) -- The Citrus College Baseball team gave up a five run lead over the final three innings of their season opener at Cerritos College on Friday afternoon. The Owls literally threw away their season opener as a pair of throwing errors in the bottom of the ninth led to two runs for Cerritos and a 9-8 loss for Citrus.
Citrus got off to a shaky start on Friday, committing an error when Cerritos’ leadoff batter put the ball in play in their first at bat of the game. The error eventually led to a pair of runs in the bottom of the first, with starter sophomore Richard Perry finally getting out the inning with a strikeout against the seventh batter he faced.
After that Citrus settled down on defense, and their offense also found a groove. Citrus cut the lead to one run in the top of the second with an RBI double off the bat of freshman William Oullette. The Owls kept it going in the third when they exploded for four runs.
Sophomore Nick Oddo drove in a run with a double up the right field line, and freshman Michael Rowland added two more two at bats later with a double to left field. Oulette would drive in the final run of the inning with a fielder’s choice RBI that put Citrus up 5-2.
With the offense clicking, Perry settled in on the hill, giving up just four hits between the second and sixth innings. Cerritos would score once more off Perry in the bottom of the third, but Perry did more than enough on the mound to give Citrus a chance to win.
Leading 6-3, Citrus put even more cushion in their lead in the top of the sixth inning. Rowland, sophomore Ricky Mount, and sophomore Trevor Sporrer all recorded RBI’s to give Citrus a seemingly comfortable 8-3 lead.
Things began to unravel for Citrus in the bottom of the seventh. The Falcons chased Perry after four batters and a run in the inning. Perry gave way to sophomore Allende Esquivel who came in and after giving up a single to right-center, induced a double play to get out of the inning.
Esquivel struggled with his control in the next inning though hitting three batters. That combined with another Citrus error, led to three Cerritos runs that cut Citrus lead to just a single run at 8-7. After the Owls offense went down in order in the top of the ninth, Cerritos got a hit and two errors in the bottom of the ninth, scoring two runs to win the game.
In the loss, Citrus was led by sophomore Steve Hoyos who went 2 for 5 and Rowland who was 1 for 3 with 3 RBI’s. With the loss, Citrus falls to 0-1 on the year. The Owls will be back on the field tomorrow as they host El Camino and East LA for a double-header in their home opener. Citrus opens up with El Camino at 10:00 AM.
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