SANTEE, Calif. – Vanguard (12-5, 5-3) and San Diego Christian (9-6, 5-3) split the two contests today with the Hawks taking the opener 8-0 before the Lions rallied and won 16-2 in the finale. At the end of the day, the Blue and Gold sit atop the GSAC conference standings.
In Head Coach Rob Pegg's words it was, "A tale of two games. We had a few opportunities early in game one, but credit goes to their pitcher who threw a great game. Bats came alive in game two and Steele had a strong outing going the distance."
Game One: San Diego Christian 8, Vanguard 0
Offensively, Paul Keating (SR/Oceanside, CA) paced the Pride with three hits on four attempts and Trai Patrick (JR/Everett, WA) went 2-4 as they were the only members of the team to generate multiple hits on the day. On the other side of the diamond, the Hawks had four players achieve that status.
Ryan Hinle was given the loss after allowing two earned runs in 5.1 innings of work. The trio of Christian Lumanlan, Akoni Arriaga (JR/Wailuku, HI), and Jake Mellenthin rounded out the work for the Blue and Gold. For SDC, Michael Robards went the distance striking out 13 batters.
The contest was a close one until the bottom of the sixth inning as only one run had been scored. Then, things got away from Vanguard as four runs were scored in the bottom of the frame. SDC tacked on three runs over the seventh and eighth innings to seal the game.
"Overall today was an interesting day of baseball. Credit to Robards to pitching a great game for sdcc in game one, but I guess we saved all of our offense for game two and exploded for 16 runs. It was a good way to cap the series," Keating stated after the twinbill.
Game Two: Vanguard 16, San Diego Christian 2
The squads seemed to trade sides for the nightcap as the Lions blasted out 16 runs. It didn't take long as they racked up five runs in their first at bat. Vanguard added two more in the third inning. VU held a 12-0 advantage until the Hawks even got on the board. But, the Blue and Gold were done as they scored four more runs before the game was over. In all they tallied 14 hits, eight more than SDC.
Sam Neufeld (FR/Indio, CA) was ON FIRE as he was 4-4 on the day jacking even RBI's and three scored runs. Three Lions hit home runs on the game: Neufeld, Brandon Sandoval (JR/Fallbrook, CA), and Jose Rojas (SR/Anaheim, CA). Sandoval batted 2-5 including an RBI and two plated runs in addition to Rojas hitting 3-4 with two runs batted in and three scored on the base paths.
On the mound, Tyler Steele (FR/Kingsburg, CA) took care of business in the seven innings of the contest. He struck out four batters and gave up six hits. For the Hawks, they used five pitchers with none of them pitching more than 2.2 innings.
Next up for the Blue and Gold is a non-conference matchup with Marymount California University on Tuesday, March 1st at 2:30 p.m. In their previous meetings, the Lions won all three by a combined score of 25-10.
-GOLD PRIDE-
