SBCC's Rich McCaffrey fires away at Cuesta.
SBCC couldn’t hold a one-run lead in the ninth and Cuesta couldn’t maintain a three-run lead in the 10th. It was that kind of day on Thursday as the Cougars outlasted the Vaqueros 10-8 in 11 innings in a WSC North baseball game at Pershing Park.
The teams combined for 18 runs, 24 hits, 11 errors, 19 strikeouts and 18 walks.
Josh Miller had three hits for the first-place Cougars, who are ranked No. 2 in Southern California. Brett Haringa, who pitched the last three innings for the victory, got two RBIs on a pair of bases-loaded walks. Chris Lindmark was 2-4 and drove in two runs.
Cuesta (17-3, 7-0 WSC North) won its 17th straight game in spite of seven errors. The Cougars scored three in the 10th and two in the 11th. Four of those five runs were unearned.
Lindmark’s infield single brought in Labronze Sanderson to make it 10-9 with two outs in the top of the 11th. Cuesta tallied its final run on a bases-loaded walk to Haringa.
The Vaqueros (9-12, 3-4) took a 5-4 lead in the seventh when Joey Epperson scored on Zach Zehner’s fielder’s choice with the bases loaded. The Cougars got Steven Reveles on a forceout for the second out but couldn’t get Zehner at first.
Reveles went 4-for-6, raising his batting average to .338. Mark Jebbia, Eli Michaels and Joey Gonzalez all had two hits. Gonzalez drove in two runs and Michaels scored three times.
“We played well and we battled back,” said first-year SBCC coach Jeff Walker. “More things went their way. We came back with three in the 10th and had the winning run 90 feet away but couldn’t score.
“Then we made a couple mistakes in the 11th and allowed them to get two more runs. I thought our pitchers threw well. We just didn’t come up with the routine plays we needed to at the end.”
Rich McCaffrey went the first 4 2/3 for the Vaqueros, giving up four runs on five hits with seven strikeouts and four walks. Lucas Benenati pitched 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief, allowing three hits and fanning five.
Four Vaquero pitchers struck out 14 but they also walked 13 and hit two batters.
Brandon Laubhan made an outstanding play in center field to end the eighth inning. With two runners on and the score tied 5-5, Josh Miller singled to center and Laubhan fired a one-hop bullet to catcher Jared Dinges, who held onto the ball after getting leveled by pinch-runner Gavin Susca.
“We competed and it was a good bounce-back effort from Tuesday,” added Walker. “Cuesta is on a roll where the bounces seem to be going their way. But we‘ll see them two more times this year.”
The Vaqueros travel to Hancock on Friday at 2:30 p.m., then host Oxnard on Saturday at 1 p.m.
LINE SCORE:
Cuesta ……. 202 000 001 32 — 10 11 7
SBCC ……… 112 000 100 30 — 8 13 4
Aprato, Nelson (5), Haringa (9) and Nieporte; McCaffrey, Benenati (5), Turner (9), Oshima (10) and Dinges, Eaton (9). W–Haringa 3-0. L–Turner 1-2.
2B–C: Miller 2, Nieporte. SB: Jebbia, Gonzalez, Laubhan, Michaels.
