10th straight "W" puts OEC title in sight

The Saddleback baseball team won its 10^th straight game with a 20-4 win over Golden West College on Saturday in Huntington Beach.  With the win, the magic number to win the Orange Empire Conference (OEC) is down to one. 

Saddleback looked like a well-oiled machine on offense on Saturday.  They scored in each of the first five innings in taking a commanding 18-2 lead.  The Bobcats scored four times in the first inning, five times in the second and seven times in the fourth as the Golden West pitching staff had no answers.  The Bobcats finished with a season-high 24 hits, which was the highest number since Saddleback had 29 hits against San Diego City College in 2014 (25-5 W).    It was the second time this season that Saddleback has scored 20 runs in a game, also scoring 20 against College of the Canyons  (20-2 W) on opening weekend.

Lance Gardiner (pictured) bounced back from a 0-for-4 performance on Thursday by collecting four hits in seven at-bats.  Zachary Schwartzberg and Cole Koniarsky both led the team with four RBI on the afternoon.  Michael Davinni raised his team-leading batting average to .437 with a 3-for-4 performance. 

Meanwhile, Saddleback started ace Connor Wilford on the mound so the only question was how far the coaching staff would let him go before yanking him from the game.  Wilford stuck around just long enough to pick up the win, finishing five innings while improving to 8-2 on the season.  Wilford struck out four while spreading around six hits before exiting with an 18-2 lead.  The Bobcats then turned the ball over to a combination of Jacob Juarez, Wilson Hall and Cameron Cooke for the final four innings of play.

Saddleback had enough time on their hands to do some scoreboard watching as they entered the day with a one game lead over Riverside City College with four games remaining.  The scoreboard produced winning numbers as well as Orange Coast managed an 8-3 win against the Tigers, giving the Bobcats a two-game lead in the Orange Empire Conference with three games remaining on the regular season schedule.

Saddleback is now 29-8 overall and 14-4 in Orange Empire Conference play.  The 29 wins is the most since the program had 33 wins in 2018.  The 14 wins in OEC play is the most since winning 17 in 2016. 

Saddleback's 10-game winning streak is the longest streak since winning 10 in a row to start the 2017 season.  The last time Saddleback won 11 straight games was in the middle of the 2016 season.  The last time Saddleback won an Orange Empire Conference championship was in 2016.

Saddleback will play Fullerton College in the final three-game series of the regular season starting on Tuesday in Fullerton (2:00 PM).  The Bobcats will then host the Hornets on Thursday (2:00 PM) before heading back to Fullerton on Friday (2:00 PM) in the final game of the regular season.