Glendora, CA (Baseball) -- Sophomore Kyle Nutter continued to lay his claim as one of the most feared hitters in the Southland on Tuesday afternoon as he bombarded San Bernardino Valley with three hits in four at bats. Two of the hits were home runs (one a grand slam), as Nutter recorded five RBI’s and three runs scored in Tuesday’s 21-6 shellacking of the Wolverines.
Despite the final outcome, the Fighting Owls trailed early as they found themselves in a 5-3 hole after the top of the third inning. That’s when Nutter sent his first bomb over the fence, sending a moon shot over the left field fence to cut the lead to one.
Citrus exploded an inning later starting off the inning with back to back solo jacks by freshmen Nicholas Bergara and Hugo Atienzo. The Fighting Owls followed that up by loading up the bases for Nutter with no one out.
Nutter strolled to the plate and sent another long fly out of the yard for his first grand slam of the season. Before all was said and done Citrus had blown the game out of the water with 10 total runs in the bottom of the fourth as they took a commanding 14-5 lead.
With the Citrus offense humming on all cylinders, the Fighting Owls pitching did much of the same in the middle innings. Sophomore Scott McKeen took over for a struggling Justin Grijalva and Matthew Hart in fourth and pitched three strong. McKeen gave up just two hits, walked two batters, gave up no runs and struck out three batters as he picked up his second win of the season.
Citrus would add five more runs in the fifth and two more in the eighth as they scored their most runs in a regular season game since 2008, when they dropped 22 on West LA (Citrus also scored 21 runs in 2009 in the playoff play-in game at Rio Hondo).
Joining in on the offensive fun for Citrus was sophomore Luis Zeledon who went 3 for 5 with 3 runs and 4 RBI’s and Bergara who went 3 for 3 with 4 runs scored and 3 RBI’s.
With the win, Citrus improves to 5-0 their best start under Head Coach Steve Gomez, while San Bernardino Valley falls to 0-5. The Fighting Owls will get back out on the field tomorrow as they play host to Mt. San Jacinto. First pitch is set for 2:00 PM.
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