Eduardo Miranda

The Daily Independent

After losing the first home game and away game to Desert, the Cerro Coso baseball team returned to their home field looking to avoid being swept and gain some ground against the team ahead of them in the Inland Empire Athletic Conference standing. But a late game collapse saw the Coyotes fall to the Roadrunners, 17-5, and give the visitors the sweep with seven games left in the season.

"It's a bad one and you hate to be a part of it," said Head Coach Justus Scott on the loss. "And it's been like that for us for a couple of weeks. We just can't get ourselves out of it and it's the nature of this group, this team. The majority of them are young, that could just be an excuse, but they have to become better baseball players. Simple as that. From a baseball IQ, from an execution standpoint, and just the competitiveness regardless of the score. I think that is the biggest piece of it. We haven't learned yet how to mitigate baseball games where you can leave the field at 9-5 or 10-5 loss instead of giving up that big inning due to walks, missed plays, hitting guys 0-2, just baseball stuff that at the time the young player understands. But it really can keep yourself in the baseball game."

For the first two innings, the Coyotes and Roadrunners were in a close game with the visitors scoring two runs against starting pitcher Brandon Donohue but came off defensive errors from the infield. The Coyotes responded scoring a run in the bottom of the second with the bases loaded the Roadrunner pitcher walked Gavin Fraser. That was the closest the Coyotes got to taking the lead from the Roadrunners as the visitors scored two runs in the third against Donohue and two in the fourth against Jacob Rice. The Coyotes trailed 6-2 but responded with two runs in the bottom of the fifth. Jonluke Hobdy reached first on a throwing error from Desert and Seth Moore was at bat. He hit a two-run home run over the left field fence to cut the deficit in half.

That was the closest the Coyotes got to the visitors as they went on to score nine runs in the top of the seventh. Rice began on the mound and he got the first batter to hit into a routine ground ball for the first out, but he walked the next batter. That led to Scott visiting the mound and calling on Johnathan Neal, who gave up back-to-back hits to load the bases with one out. He walked the next batter to give Desert a 7-3 lead and kept the bases loaded. The next batter hit a double into the gap at left field and a walk loaded the bases, which led to a grand slam from the Roadrunners for a 13-3 lead. Neal then hit the ensuing batter and gave up a hit, which led to Scott calling Angel Escobar to the mound.

Escobar got the first batter he faced to hit a ground ball past shortstop Ariel Rodriguez to score a run and then Desert hit a double into the right field gap for a 15-3 lead. Escobar got the next two batters to pop out to Moore and Fraser. In the bottom of the inning, the Coyotes scored a run on a hit from Moore to bring home Hobdy. Cerro Coso cut the deficit to 15-4 with two innings left.

Michael Karlin closed the game throwing the final two innings but he gave up back-to-back hits in the eighth that scored two runs for the visitors. The Coyotes went into the bottom of the ninth trailing 17-4 and needed 13 runs to force extra innings or 14 for the win. Fraser was the leadoff batter and he got a hit to reach first. Hobdy was hit by a pitch to put runners at second and first, and Moore was at bat. He got a hit to reach first and moved Fraser to third but Hobdy was thrown out at second. Aaron Bronnenberg got a hit past the third baseman to score Fraser. Garren Gledhill was at bat but hit a line drive to the third baseman who then made the throw to second to get Moore out for the double play.

With the loss, the Coyotes fall to 14-19 overall and 7-10 in conference play, which places them in a tie with San Bernardino Valley for fourth and fifth place and extends the current losing streak to four games. With a young squad, Scott hopes his players will take the time to look at the losses and learn from them as they get ready to play the final games of the season.

"That is actually a great question and that's the key and all we should be doing right now, but we are not doing that," the Coyotes coach said. "We are not allowing ourselves as a baseball team and individual baseball player, allowing ourselves to learn the game because we are not able to again mitigate big innings, both defensively and on the mound. And they are not giving themselves a chance to learn the game.

"We have seven or eight more games and if we are able to finish fairly strong with the baseball end of it then several things will happen. We feel better about ourselves as a program, each guy feels better about themselves, and you have something to build to and work to. You don't want to go out like this and they don't realize this yet but they do not want to go out like this."

Cerro Coso face Barstow in a two-game series beginning on Tuesday at home and the second game on the road on Saturday. The first pitch for Tuesday's home game is 2:30 p.m.