SBCC took a 4-0 lead in Thursday’s WSC North baseball game at Cuesta before the Cougars stormed back with 12 runs in their final four at-bats on the way to a 12-6 victory in San Luis Obispo.
Conner Rehage homered for the second straight game but it wasn’t enough to prevent the sixth loss in nine games for the Vaqueros (20-15, 10-9). They thought they had clinched third place and a probable Southern Cal playoff berth prior to Thursday’s game but that turned out to be false.
It all comes down to Friday’s regular-season finale at 2:30 p.m. at Pershing Park. If SBCC wins, it will finish third. If Cuesta (17-16, 9-10) wins, it will tie the Vaqueros for third and the Cougars own the tiebreaker advantage. They went 1-3 against first-place Oxnard while SBCC was 0-4.
Oxnard clinched the WSC North title on Thursday with an 8-6 win over Hancock.
Rehage went 3-4 with a two-run homer in the second inning. He boosted his WSC-leading total to 13 homers, just two shy of Delwyn Young’s school record of 15. Sam Johnston was 2-2 with an RBI and two runs.
Zach Edgington had flu-like symptoms on Wednesday and wasn’t at full-strength for his start. The left-hander went 4 1/3 innings, striking out four in his first start since a school-record 21 K performance. He gave up three runs (one earned) on four hits.
“They hit some balls where we weren’t and one of their doubles was lost in the sun,” said Santa Barbara coach Teddy Warrecker. “We didn’t do a good job defensively.”
The Vaqueros are 14-4 at home this year and have won 21 of their last 25 at Pershing.
SBCC ……… 022 002 000 — 6 13 4
Cuesta ……. 000 033 51x — 12 14 1
Edgington, Gardner (5), Gunderson (6), Turnbull (7), Alvarez (7) and Keller; Brehm, Tiedemann (3) and Prophet. W–Tiedemann. L–Gardner 2-3.
2B–SB: Keller. C: Filicia, Anderson. HR–SB: Rehage (13), 2nd inn., one on.
Records–SBCC 20-15, 10-9. Cuesta 18-17, 9-10.
