On Thursday, March 27, the Cerritos College baseball team suffered a 3-2 loss at home in a conference game against their rivals from East Los Angeles College.
The Huskies came into the game with a game ahead of the Falcons for first place in the conference.
The Falcons sent sophomore right handed pitcher Dylan Algra out to the mound against the Huskies.
Algra would go on to pitch 6 1/3 innings, giving up three runs (two earned), on five hits, two walks and three strikeouts.
“I definitely had to work at some points you know. I mean in those jams I was lucky and I found my stuff at those points,” said Algra.
According to Algra, the Huskies made him work a little extra, as they kept him under pressure by putting runners in scoring position.
Algra concludes by talking about the next game against ELAC. “Big game tomorrow for sure. This is the team to beat and we definitely have to put a win in tomorrow,” said Algra.
The Falcons were on a five game winning streak and coming off a win at ELAC on Mar. 25, in the first of three straight games against the first place Huskies.
Freshmen outfielder Kyle Carpenter talks about the game, “I just feel like we didn’t do our job mostly,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter continues by saying that the two dropped balls gave the game away and concludes by looking ahead to the rubber game finale of the series.
“We feel confident over there since I pitched there and shut them down, but we got our ace going on Saturday so I’m confident we’ll do good over there,” said Carpenter.
After the game, freshmen second basemen Justin Walsh talk about how the wind played a factor in the game.
“The wind always plays a little in the game. The throw kind of tails a little bit for pitchers and infielders, balls don’t seem to fly off the bat as well and balls just really don’t get into the gaps like they would on a normal easy day,”Walsh said.
Walsh thinks he and his teammates hit some balls right on the money, but more often than not they were hit right at the fielders and concludes by talking about what he and his teammates can take and use in the series finale on the road.
“You know we’re hungry. This game only fuels the fire and I think we’re going to go in there Saturday and do work so we feel pretty confident going in there,” said Walsh.
The Falcons got off to a good start offensively as lead-off hitter sophomore Johnny Martinez singled up the middle to start the game.
Carpenter would proceed to laying down a sacrifice bunt to advance Martinez into scoring position.
Sophomore outfielder Jared Robinson would proceed to drive Martinez in with an RBI single up the middle to put the Falcons up 1-0.
That lead would hold until the top of the fifth when sophomore outfielder Jose Ayala misplayed a fly ball in left that allowed the Huskies to put a man into scoring position with no outs.
The Huskies would cash in on this gift by tying the game up at 1-1. The Huskies would collect two more runs in the top of the seventh on back-to-back squeeze plays.
The first of these squeeze plays resulted in a violent collision at home plate, in what appeared to be an out at home had sophomore catcher Chris Carrillo held on to the ball.
Trailing by two in the bottom of the eighth, sophomore first basemen Jose Romero homered over the left field wall to bring the Falcons within one run of tying the game at 3-2.
However, the score would remain at 3-2 resulting in a loss for the Falcons. Head baseball coach Ken Gaylord gives his input on the game. “Well we dropped two balls and that was the game. We had some opportunities we didn’t cash in but we gave them two runs and that was it,” Gaylord said.
