Cerritos College Falcons baseball team took the series 2-1 vs the ELAC Huskies after an 8-1 win on April 12, after dominant pitching and the offense getting hot in the sixth inning.
Throughout the first half of the game, neither offense was clicking as both pitchers from each team didn’t allow a single run through five innings.
Falcons Pitcher, Derek Valdez, shared how he felt throughout the game with his pitching, “I felt good up there. I knew right from the first inning, throwing the first pitch fastball strike it was going to be a good day.”
Valdez was the first to allow hits in the first inning but had a three-inning stretch of no hits to recover from that.
“During the game, you don’t really know, how the game is going until afterwards. I was like, oh, like that was by a couple of the stretch right there where I didn’t get a hit,” Valdez shared.
Though Valdez’s pitching was well the offense couldn’t get a score as ELAC’s starting pitcher, Jacob Ramos was doing just as good as Valdez.
Head Coach for the Falcons, Nate Fernley, shared what his offense’s approach was against Ramos, “Every time we know who’s starting, the day before, we talk about what the game plan is before happens, on what the pitcher, can do.
“But it’s a tough game so even if you know what you’re expecting sometimes the execution of the pitch rules on that end and so I thought we were prepared, I just think he did a good job of throwing his pitch especially early,” Fernley said.
The Falcons offense was finally able to get things rolling in the sixth starting to get on base and score the first runs of the game.
He started to leave a couple of pitches over the plate,” Fernley said as to what got his offense started in the sixth.
“He did really good throwing side to side there but he left a couple of pitches up and luckily we took advantage of it and were able to put a couple on the board,” Fernley added.
Falcons first baseman, Wyatt Ormonde, was the first to get on the board in the sixth with an RBI double as he continues to have a great hitting season as he went three for five on his at-bats.
“It’s all about just seeing the pitches and, I mean, I’ve seen everything really well, right now. Just staying in the strike zone not chasing,” Ormonde stated as to why he’s had great success this season.
Ormonde wasn’t the only one to contribute RBIs in the sixth as Ryan Reyes was able to get an RBI single and had a great day hitting, going three for three and a hit-by-pitch for his first start of the season.
“I was just trying not to do too much. Just looking for a base hit,” Reyes shared to as what his thought process was during his at-bats.
The Falcons look to replicate this performance heading for the rest of the season as Ormonde stated, “We need to play to our level and honestly, we should be, I think the number one team in California, if we can do that.”
