SBCC’s offense struggled for the second straight day on Wednesday afternoon at Pershing Park in an 8-2 WSC North baseball loss to Cuesta.
Phillip Gerber, a sidearm-throwing right-hander, tossed a complete-game six-hitter at the Vaqueros (11-12, 5-4), who’ve scored just three runs in their last 18 innings. He struck out six and walked one for the conference-leading Cougars (15-8, 7-2), who are ranked No. 5 in Southern California.
Garrett Trevino ropes a run-scoring single for the Vaqueros in the third inning.
“We’re not getting pitches to hit, we’re taking ourselves out of at-bats and we’re not competing,” said coach Ryan Thompson. “We’re selling ourselves short of our talent.
“And our pitchers got banged around. We fell behind in the count, we left balls up and they hit them hard. That’s a good-hitting team, they’re third or fourth in the state in hitting.”
Left-hander Jacob Dexter made his first start for SBCC since suffering an injury in the third game of the year. He gave up five runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings.
Cuesta led 3-0 after two innings and 5-1 through five. The Vaqueros cut it to 5-2 in the seventh on a double by Tommy White and a sacrifice fly by Andrew Smith but the Cougars responded with a three-spot in the eighth.
Joey Epperson went 2-4 with a double for the Vaqueros, who will host Moorpark on Thursday at 2:30 p.m.
SBCC was slated to play five games in five days but that won’t happen since Friday’s game at Oxnard has been moved to Monday, April 4.
Cuesta …….. 210 020 030 — 8 12 1
SBCC …….… 001 000 100 — 2 6 0
Gerber and Landmark; Dexter, Gunderson (5), Nieves (7), Vasquez (9) and White. W–Gerber 6-1. L–Dexter 0-2.
2B–C: Camporeale 2. SB: Epperson, White.
