The Conejo Oaks found a way to cool off the hot-hitting Santa Barbara Foresters: pitcher J.C. Aguayo.
Aguayo pitched eight innings of shutout ball, struck out 10 and allowed six hits, and the Oaks handed the Foresters their first defeat of the season, 4-2, Thursday at Sparky Anderson Field in Thousand Oaks.
“You’ve got to tip your hat to him, he did a great job,” Foresters manager Bill Pintard said of the former Oxnard College standout who plays at Northwestern Oklahoma State. He was throwing the slider in there for strikes and he was getting us to chase. That was the best pitching performance we’ve seen.”
The Foresters are now 9-1 and 5-1 in the California Collegiate League. Conejo is 8-3, 4-3.
The Oaks jump on Foresters starter Matt Vedo in the third inning. Kevin Minjares squeaked a single up the middle to lead off the inning and Scott Heineman followed with a two-run homer that just barely cleared the right field fence.
Mario Landeros hit a sacrifice fly to bring in the third run, scoring Sean McIntyre. McIntyre reached base on a hit to right field and went all the way to third on basehit to right by Aguayo base hit to the same spot in right.
The Oaks added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth.
The Foresters put together a rally in the top of the ninth against Oaks reliever Spencer Trygg. Jeff McVaney scored on a triple by pinch hitter Joe Wallace, and Wallace came in to score on a wild pitch to Nick Melino.
The rally ended when pinch runner Lance Roenicke was thrown out attempting to steal second with the tying run at the plate. The Foresters had four runners thrown out in the game.
Trygg struck out Richard Stock to end the game.
Pintard summed up his team’s effort as a lapse in focus and a lack of discipline at the plate.
“You’re not going to go undefeated the whole year. You’re going to have losses. This is a loss and hopefully we learn from it. I don’t like losing but it’s going to happen.”
The Foresters are back home Friday, Saturday and Sunday against CCL rivals the San Luis Obispo Blues.
Oxnard College Rocks!!!! Lots of baseball players playing in the big leagues first played for the Oxnard College Condors such as the Terry Pendleton who played for the St. Louis Cardinals back in the 80’s. There are many others as well so there is lots to be said about California community college baseball.