Gauchos smell rosy on Mother’s Day

The Saddleback baseball team advanced to the regional finals next weekend with an 8-7 win over Golden West College on Sunday afternoon in Huntington Beach.  The Gauchos rallied from a 7-5 deficit and hung on to win to advance to the state's final eight.

Saddleback started hot, taking a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the second inning.  The Gauchos posted three runs in the first when Golden West pitcher Ryan Kayoda had some control issues.  Colby Schultz led off the inning with a single and advanced to second when Kayoda threw a wild pitch to Dylan Diaz.  He would come around to score as Diaz delivered a single to give the Gauchos a 1-0 lead.  Later in the inning with one out and two runners on base, Kayota then committed a costly error, allowing Brett Barker to score the second run of the inning.  Ryan Fitzpatrick then capped off the scoring with a sacrifice fly to left field, scoring Cole Stanton. 

Saddleback then had runners at second and third with one out in the top of the second when Kayota was taken out of the game for Alec Harris.  Diaz proceeded to pop out to the third baseman down the left field line, allowing Jack Kaloogian to score on the sacrifice for a 4-0 lead.  Barker then singled off Harris to drive in Schultz, giving Saddleback a comfortable lead.

Things quickly went south in the bottom of the second inning when Golden West scored six runs to take a 6-5 lead.  The Rustlers only hit one ball hard the entire inning but capitalized on a couple of defensive miscues in grabbing the momentum.  Golden West had five hits in the inning, a hit batsman and capitalized on a error by Shultz, eventually forcing the Gauchos into a pitching change.  John Sheaks came on to get the final two outs of the inning for Saddleback, but the damage had been done and clearly dazed the Gauchos.

The score remained the same until the sixth inning when Golden West pushed across a run to up the lead to 7-5, scoring on a wild pitch from Sheaks with two outs in the inning.  The Rustlers followed with a single and a balk before Sheaks settled down to get the final out of the inning and limit the damage. 

In the top of the sixth inning Saddleback had seen enough.  The Gauchos caught a break when River Fawley was hit by a pitch with one out in the inning to start a potential rally.  Kaloogian followed with a single and both runners advanced a base on an error by Harris, putting runners on second and third with one out.  Following a strikeout by Schultz, Diaz then delivered with a two-out double, scoring both Fawley and Kaloogian to tie the game at 7-7 and forcing Harris out of the game.  Golden West replaced Harris with Cy Vojak, who was promptly greeted by Barker with a run-scoring single as the Gauchos grabbed an 8-7 lead with a handful of innings remaining.

From that point forward the Gaucho bullpen took over.  Sheaks retired the next five Golden West batters in a row before running into some trouble in the bottom of the seventh inning.  After a single by Rustler star Jordan Lucio, Sheaks threw a wild pitch and put Lucio on second base with the potential tying run.  He then collected himself and forced a lazy fly ball to right field to get out of the jam, preserving the 8-7 lead.

The bottom of the eighth inning saw Sheaks walk the opening batter, finally forcing the Gaucho coaching staff to go to the bullpen.  Trevor Charpie was called into the game after pitching on Friday, and proceeded to stifle the Rustler attack by retiring the next three batters, with the final out coming on a swinging strikeout.

Charpie and the Gauchos then seized the moment in the bottom of the ninth inning, knocking the Rustlers out for good with a 1-2-3 inning.  Charpie struck out the final two batters for an exclamation point, and the celebration was on.

Saddleback had 17 hits on the afternoon, outslugging the Rustlers 17-11 with the money on the line.  Diaz finished 3-for-4 with four RBI while Barker, Kaloogian and Stanton all reached base safely on three occasions. 

Saddleback (27-14) advances to the regional finals next week and will travel to Palomar College to take on the top-seeded Comets in a best-of-three series starting on Friday.  The winner will advance to the state tournament the following weekend.

Saddleback and Palomar have played 77 times in their history with the Gauchos holding a 46-28-3 advantage.  Palomar (34-6) was the champions of the Pacific Coast Conference in 2015 and three of their losses on the season have come against Orange Empire Conference programs (Orange Coast, Golden West & Cypress).

Check back later in the week for specific game times next weekend.