Cats swat the Bees in opener

The Saddleback baseball team opened the 3C2A Southern California Super Regional Tournament at Los Angeles Valley College with a 6-1 victory over Fullerton College on Thursday afternoon in Valley Glen.  The Bobcats will play Los Angeles Valley College on Friday.

Saddleback and Fullerton had met 138 times coming into today, but rarely did any of the previous matchups have playoff implications.  Today's contest meant a spot in the winner's bracket of the 3C2A Super Regional Tournament, which brought out the best in the Bobcats.

Saddleback had Jack Wade on the mound to open the regional.  The First Team All-Orange Empire Conference selection was startling, shutting down a potent Fullerton lineup for 6+ innings.  Meanwhile, the offense started clicking midway through the game when Wade was pulled with the team leading 6-1. 

Saddleback and Fullerton were tied 1-1 heading into the bottom half of the fifth inning when the bats came alive.  The Bobcats pieced together six hits in the inning, three of which came with two outs.  Matthew Deutsch led off the inning with a double to left-center field and was moved over the third base on a sacrifice bunt from Bryson Hoier.  The next batter was Andrew Nykoluk, who singled home Deutch with what would be the eventual game-winning hit.  With two outs in the inning, J.C. Allen, Jacob Beauchaine and Rodrigo Barajas had consecutive singles as the lead grew to 5-1. 

Saddleback tacked on another run in the bottom half of the sixth inning when Deutsch (below) blasted his third home run of the season for a 6-1 advantage.  Deutsch would finish 2-for-4 with two runs-scored on the afternoon.  Ben Castelli, Barajas and Beauchaine would all join Deutsch with two hits on the day as Saddleback held an 11-3 advantage in hits.

Wade left the game in the top half of the seventh inning after letting Fullerton load the bases with no outs in the inning.  The Bobcats brought on Zachary Allegro, who worked like a can of Raid in keeping the Hornets off the scoreboard.  Allegro struck out Kyle Buchanon and then got Andrew Pyle to line into a double-play at third base, thus taking the wind out of the Hornets for the rest of the day.  Allegro remained in the game and pitched through the ninth inning in picking up his seventh save of the season.  Wade and Allegro combined to surrender just three hits while striking out seven for the game. 

Saddleback is now 27-16 overall following the win.  The Bobcats will play Los Angeles Valley College on Friday.  The game time has yet to be determined.  If Los Angeles Valley defeats Fullerton this afternoon, the Bobcats and Monarchs will play at 2:00 PM on Friday.  If Fullerton defeats Los Angeles Valley, the start time would be at 12:00 PM.