Cerritos swept last place EC-Compton in a three-game series to double its conference wins.
The victory in Game One of the series on April 4 was the first win for the Falcons since March 11 and snapped the team’s nine game losing streak.
The Falcons won every game in the series by at least four runs.
Starting outfielder Rolando Nichols said, “I think sometimes it’s easy to go into a game and say ‘that team isn’t that good’ and then you play down to its level, but I feel like for the majority of the series we played our own baseball.”
In Game One, the Falcons shutout the Tartars 4-0 behind pitchers Erick Velasquez and Edgar Velasquez who combined to allow only two hits, three walks and no runs.
Offensively, Cerritos finished with 12 hits, led by Jesus Mercado who finished with three and two RBIs and Jorge Rodriguez who concluded with two hits and one RBI.
Two days later, the Falcons traveled to EC-Compton and left with a 6-2 victory.
Cerritos took an early 3-0 lead in the top of the second due to RBIs by catcher Adam Rubio, Nichols, and a sacrifice bunt by outfielder Micah Hee.
The Falcons would score another three runs in the final two innings to close out the game with a victory.
The Final Game took place Saturday, where the Falcons fell behind, walking in a base runner in the top of the first to go down 1-0.
Nichols said, “Our pitchers did a good job, they got into a couple of jams but they got out of them.”
Cerritos would answer back quickly scoring two runs in the bottom of the first to take the lead.
In the next three innings the Falcons would score five runs to lead 7-1.
Head coach Ken Gaylord said, “We had some good execution on offense.”
The Tartars would try to fight back scoring one run in the sixth and two in the seventh but would ultimately lose.
Starting pitcher Gil Romero pitched seven innings, allowing four runs and five hits to claim his third win of the season. Relief pitcher Edgar Velasquez, pitched the final two innings allowing no runs, hits or walks with two strikeouts to finish the game.
Offensively Cerritos was led by starting left fielder Rolando Nichols who ended the day with two hits, one run and a game high of three RBIs.
Despite the three victories the Falcons are still fourth in the conference, one win behind Los Angeles Harbor.
The next challenge will be the Allan Hancock tournament held in Santa Maria where Cerritos will play Fresno City College, Cuesta College and Allan Hancock College.
Gaylord said. “We’re going up north so that will be a good test, there’s some good teams up there.”
After the tournament the Falcons will have a three-game series against Los Angeles Harbor and a two-game series against East Los Angeles to end the season.
Nichols concluded. “We’re making sure we keep playing hard and not getting big heads because we haven’t done what we should have done this year so we need to finish this year strong to set it up for next year.”
