Vaqueros Battle in Game One of Regional Final
By Jimmy Friery
SAN MARCOS, Calif. – The Santa Barbara City College Baseball team dropped game one of their best-of-three Regional Final series at top-seeded Palomar, 11-5, on Friday afternoon.
The Vaqueros made a game out of it after trailing 8-0 early. Perhaps that momentum will help them tomorrow in a win-or-go-home game two of this series.
With eight teams remaining in the state, anybody still playing is obviously a quality program. Palomar (40-5) are ranked at the top of that list, though, the No. 1 seed in the SoCal side of the bracket.
Thus, a five-run first-inning for them is always going to be a mountain to climb for opponents. Vaqueros' starter Adam Tripp was the victim of some bad batted-ball luck as five singles chased him before he got out of the inning. Most of them were not hit particularly hard—a seeing-eye groundball, a bunt that rolled to a stop on the chalk, and a chopper bouncing over the infield—but that's baseball, Suzyn.
Max Collins came in with two outs and surrendered a two-run single before ending the inning with a strikeout. Three more in the second—including a two-out, two-run triple—made it 8-0 Palomar.
He settled in from there, though, admirably pitching four scoreless innings and allowing the door to stay ajar. William Matuszak and Wylan Nelson hit back-to-back solo homers to lead off the top of the fourth.
Then, in the sixth, Santa Barbara had the bases loaded with one out. A wild pitch scored Lucas Carlisle, and Cole Ide's ensuing sacrifice fly made it 8-4. In the bottom half, Collins worked around back-to-back leadoff doubles—the second of which somehow did not score a run—to keep the deficit at a reasonable four runs.
The Vaqueros could not continue to tack on from there, however, as Sean Asperger was left stranded on second after his leadoff double in the seventh. Palomar got the momentum back with three runs in the bottom half, increasing their lead to 11-4.
Still, Santa Barbara would not go down quietly. In the ninth, they worked the bases loaded with one out. Damos Deworken's sacrifice fly made it 11-5 with the top of the order coming up, but it was too tall a task. The hosts took game one by that scoreline and took a 1-0 lead in the Regional Final.
Matuszak, Nelson, and Asperger each had two hits of the team's seven.
Fans in attendance this weekend may be treated to a baseball rarity. Palomar's starting pitcher Elijah Stephens went six innings to earn the game-one win, but also led his offense with four hits, including two doubles. Time will tell if Santa Barbara's two-way star, Wylan Nelson, gets the ball on the mound tomorrow, meaning consecutive days with two-way starting pitchers.
First pitch for game two is set for 1 p.m. Fans not attending in-person can watch via a livestream on the Pixellot mobile app.