Leadoff hitter Robert Vickers belted a homer and a double on Tuesday and Cody Giordano collected three hits for the second straight day to lead SBCC past Ventura 5-2 in a WSC North baseball game at Pershing Park.
“I’ve been seeing the ball better lately and putting better swings on the ball,” said Vickers, a former Dos Pueblos High standout who transferred from College of the Canyons. “He threw me a hanging slider (on the home run). I had two strikes and I just choked up and tried to stay short. When I saw it hanging, I just turned on it.”
The Vaqueros (15-12, 9-4) extended their season-high win streak to four games and moved into a tie with Cuesta atop the WSC North. Hancock routed Cuesta 15-1 on Tuesday.
Five pitchers combined on a seven-hitter for Santa Barbara, which has captured seven of its last nine games. Tim Alvarez gave up two runs in the first four innings to get his first win and Anthony Perry notched his fourth save.
SBCC had a season-high 13 hits with a homer and three doubles. Ventura didn’t have an extra-base hit.
“I’m pleased with our hit total but I’m not pleased that we left guys on third with less than two outs multiple times,” said coach Ryan Thompson. “We need to do a better job of sacrificing an out for a run. This game could have easily been 9-2.
“We were planning to throw a bunch of guys and our pitchers relished in their roles. We played tough defense and our talent shined through today.”
Vickers led off the third with his first homer of the season over the right-field fence. It was a screaming liner that bounced onto Castillo St. and tied the game at 2. Giordano and Joey Epperson followed with singles and Colt McLaughlin put SBCC ahead to stay 3-2 by driving in Giordano with an opposite-field single.
Giordano was 3-3 and has six hits in his last seven at-bats. McLaughlin was also 3-3 and threw out a runner at the plate from right field to end the fifth inning.
Vickers scored the fourth run in the fourth when he doubled with two outs and came home when Giordano sprinted to first to beat out an infield hit.
“We’re starting to figure it out as a team,” said Vickers. “We lost a lot of one-run games early and a lot of guys didn’t know how to win. Now, we’ve got everybody pulling the same way.”
SBCC made it 5-2 in the seventh by scoring on a squeeze bunt for the first time this year. Eli Michaels opened with a single and went to second on an outfield error. Shay Maltese bunted him to third and he scored on a squeeze bunt by Andrew Smith.
The Vaqueros travel to Ventura to complete their four-game conference series on Thursday, then return home to host Hancock on Saturday at 1 p.m.
Ventura ……. 101 000 000 — 2 7 1
SBCC …….… 012 101 00x — 5 13 2
Babola, Tyburski (7), Rinaldi (7) and Boys, Gwynn (8); Alvarez, Dexter (5), Caraccioli (7), Gunderson (8), Perry (9) and Trevino. W–Alvarez 1-0. L–Babola 2-3 . S–Perry 4.
2B–SB: McLaughlin, Maltese, Vickers. HR–SB: Vickers (1), 3rd inn., none on.
YAY BERT!!!! I’m your number one fan!