Baseball Pulls Off Series Win Over State #1 Cerritos

The Pasadena City College baseball team sent some more shockwaves thoughout the Southland with its second straight win over state #1 and South Coast Conference-leading Cerritos, 4-3, on Saturday at Brookside Park's Jackie Robinson Field. PCC takes the series v. the Falcons, two games to one.

The Lancers (21-16 overall) closed out their SCC schedule at 13-11, currently fourth place in the conference. Cerritos (30-7 overall) fell to 17-4 in SCC play ahead of second-place Long Beach at 15-6. Both of those teams have one series left to play while PCC has three non-conference games next week to close out the 2024 regular season.

PCC is trying to make the postseason for the sixth straight complete season under head coach Pat McGee and should qualify as one of the 24 SoCal playoff seeds.

Pasadena trailed Cerritos, 3-0, after five innings, but then rallied to tie with three runs in the sixth. Adrian Roman hit a RBI single. Later in the frame, on a wild pitch, Cerritos catcher Alonso Reyes got to the ball and attempted to throw out Evan Nahra at the plate, but his throw got away for an error that allowed Roman to storm home as well from second that knotted it at 3-3.

In the seventh, Ivan Barragan and Tyler Garcia hit singles and Bryan Richman lifted a sacrifice fly for what proved to be the game-winning RBI. 

Shortstop Jack Esguerra batted 3-for-4 while Richman was 2-for-3.

Reliever Ben Griffith, who is the team's saves leader with six, was once again lights out as he tossed four innings of no-hit ball for the mound win, facing the mininum 12 batters, walking one and erasing that runner on a double play. Joe Bacon started and pitched five innings, allowing six hits, two earned runs and striking out three. 

The PCC defense put on a clinic, robbing Cerritos of several hits. Tyler Garcia twice made great catches at the centerfield fence and also made a diving catch on a ball hit by DJ Massey in the seventh. Barragan made a diving stop as well to start a 4-6-3 double play in the eighth. 

On Monday, April 22, PCC plays a non-conference game at Chaffey College. First pitch is 2 p.m.