Eduardo Miranda
The Daily Independent
After falling in the first game 8-2 to the Southwestern College Jaguars, the Cerro Coso Coyotes baseball team rebounded to take the second game 10-4 to earn a series split. In the series opener loss, the Coyotes offense failed to score until the eighth inning, but in the win the bats came to life early, scoring four in the first and two in the second.
"Southwestern is a quality team and I enjoy playing them. You have to play well to beat them, which we did today," said head coach Justus Scott. "It's good to split the series. It's early, but it's nice to be 2-2 instead of 1-3."
The Coyotes started Jaylen Guttierrez on the mound, where he threw four innings, giving up an earned run on five hits. He didn't walk a batter and struck out three. Caden Johnson was the first reliever to come out of the bullpen and threw two innings, giving up two hits. He walked a batter and struck out four. Luis De Los Santos was called upon for 1.2 innings, giving up three runs, all earned, on two hits. He walked three batters and struck out two in getting his second win of the season. Andre Carillo threw 0.1 innings and walked a batter. Kannon Welbourne closed the game throwing a scoreless inning where he walked a batter and struck out one. As a team the Coyotes pitchers finished with six walks and 10 strikeouts and allowed only nine hits for four runs in nine innings.
The Coyotes' offense had 37 at-bats to score 10 runs on 14 hits with nine RBIs. They had three walks but struck out in nine appearances and left 10 runners stranded.
Jordan Boman led the team with four RBIs on three hits and scored two runs in five at-bats. Kyle Phin had an RBI with two hits and two runs scored in three at-bats. Andrew Bain had an RBI from three hits and two runs scored in four at-bats. Yadiel Casul had an RBI and a hit in five at-bats. Dariel Rios had an RBI from two hits on four at-bats. James Stoner had an RBI on one hit in five at-bats.
The Coyotes scored six runs in two innings with four in the bottom of the first. It began with Boman hitting an RBI single to score Lauren Binney, Bain hit an RBI single to score Boman, Casul hit an RBI single to score Phin, and Stoner brought Bain home on a sacrifice ground ball to third base. In the bottom of the second, Boman hit a two-run home run to score Phin and give the home team a 6-0 lead.
Scott said on getting an early lead over the Jaguars, "it's always good when you score early, takes a little bit of pressure off of you offensively. It freezes hitters up and frees you up to run and bunt a little bit. It's nice to jump out to an early lead. And our guys on the mound, we ran into a little bit of trouble in the eighth, but that's a good hitting team, and we just walked too many in the eighth. We had good pitching, and the best thing about today, which we haven't done for three games, is we played good defense."
The Jaguars scored a run in the top of the third inning on an RBI double. Cerro Coso scored a run in the bottom of the fourth on a balk by the opposing pitcher that scored Phin. The Coyotes added two runs in the bottom of the fifth; the first was an RBI single by Boman that brought Vega home. The second was a sacrifice fly by Phin to score Ariel Rodriguez.
In the top of the eighth, the Coyotes gave up three runs. The inning began with De Los Santos on the mound and getting the leadoff batter to hit a fly ball to Stoner in left field. He then walked the next two batters and got the next batter to hit a ground ball to him for the second out at first, but the Jaguars scored a run. The ensuing batter singled to score another run. De Los Santos walked the next batter he faced and then gave up a single that cut the lead to 9-4. That brought Scott out to send Carillo to the mound, where he walked the first batter he faced to load the bases. He then got the final out on a ground ball to Rodriguez.
The Coyotes responded to the three runs in the top of the inning by scoring a run in the bottom of the same inning. Rios hit an RBI single to score Bain for a 10-4 lead. Welbourne was on the mound in the top of the ninth. He struck out the first batter, got the next to ground out to Boman, walked the ensuing batter, and got the final out on a ground ball to Rodriguez at second base.
Scott praised his team's defensive performance in the win over the Jaguars. He said, "even our win over Rio we did not play well. This is the first game out of four that they played kind of free. I think – like so many teams do early – we have a lot of new guys kind of feeling their way through a game, and you can't do that. Today was the first time we played free and grabbed a win."
The Coyotes will look to maintain their momentum when they play four games beginning with a road trip to Moorpark on Tuesday. They then host Santa Barbara on Thursday and finish the week with a two-game home series against Irvine Valley on Friday and Saturday. Scott said it's very important his team playing with the same freedom they showed against Southwestern with a tough schedule ahead of them.
"You are still going to play with that freeness and not worry about making mistakes, and still drop games — that's just how baseball is. We have a very tough week next week," he said. "We have Moorpark and Santa Barbara, two good teams, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and then we have Irvine Valley, an Orange Empire team, coming up here for two games. If we are able to split those four, I'll be feeling pretty good."
