No. 3 Vaqueros to host Rio Hondo in So Cal Regional

SBCC was seeded No. 3 for the Southern Cal Regional baseball playoffs and will host No. 14 Rio Hondo on Friday at 2 p.m. The best-of-3 series continues on Saturday at 11 a.m., followed by a third game if necessary.

      2015 Southern Cal Regional bracket

The Vaqueros went 28-8 for the second-most wins in school history in the regular season. They won their last four games to tie Oxnard for the WSC North title at 17-7. It's the third WSC title in the last five years for Santa Barbara.

The Vaqueros, who are making their fifth straight Regional appearance, are 15-3 at Pershing Park.

Three teams from the WSC North made the field. No. 2 Oxnard will host the second-lowest remaining seed from the play-in games and No. 13 Cuesta travels to No. 4 Golden West. Seven of the 18 teams in the Regional are from the Orange Empire Conference.

Rio Hondo (26-10), ranked No. 9 in Southern Cal, was the runner-up in the Foothill Conference. The Roadrunners dropped their last two games to San Bernardino in a battle for first, losing 1-0 on the final day in 12 innings.

Rio Hondo is led by outfielder/pitcher Antonio Ruiz, who's No. 4 in the State in batting at .451. He has three homers and a team-high 34 RBIs. Pitcher Joe Willis is 9-1 with a 2.91 ERA.

The Roadrunners are fifth in the State with a .313 batting average.

The Vaqueros are led by sophomore catcher James Hill, who topped the WSC North in batting (.372) and RBIs (33). Matt Henderson is No. 6 in the conference with a .345 average. Spencer Erdman is batting .333 with 22 RBIs and his 24 stolen bases are sixth in the state.

Sean Barry leads a talented pitching staff with an 8-3 record and a 1.62 ERA. He's third in the state with 87 strikeouts in 83.1 innings. Justin Bruce is 6-1 with a 2.34 ERA.

The Vaquero pitchers are No. 3 in the state with a 2.31 ERA.

Palomar (30-6) earned the No. 1 seed for the 18-team Regional, followed by Oxnard (26-9-1), SBCC, Golden West (23-13) and Cypress (25-11). Four teams will compete in two play-in games on Tuesday to get the field down to 16.

Individual tickets for the Rio Hondo-SBCC series are $10 general admission and $7 for adults/college staff/seniors/students and children under 12. A three-game pass is available for $12.