Hamm Fans a Dozen and Wissler Drives in Three as Warriors Win Ninth Straight

TORRANCE, Calif. – El Camino College overcame an early three-run deficit and went on to scorch past Chaffey, 9-4, in a South Coast Conference matchup Thursday afternoon at Warrior Field.

The Warriors (17-2, 4-0) picked up their ninth straight win as right-hander Cassius Hamm picked up his fifth victory of the season on the mound. He struck out 12 over six innings of work against the Panthers (13-6, 2-2) while Trevor Talpas picked up his first save, going three innings in relief. He allowed one run on three hits and struck out a pair.

Things got off to a rocky start for the Warriors as the Panthers put up three runs on Hamm in the top of the second. Joel Osuna started off the rally with a single to right field and then Logan Gopperton followed with a single through the right side. After Christian Lyman walked to load the bases, Hamm got the next two batters to go down swinging and was on the verge of getting out of an early jam.

But Jordan Hernandez put the Panthers on the board with a two-out RBI single to left and then Oscar Martinez followed with a walk to force in another run. Jake Nichols then added another with a base hit and that drew a mound visit from Warriors head coach Nate Fernley.

"I just said; 'Listen. Don't worry about corners. If they hit a ball in the gap then we're okay with that. We need strikes,'" Fernley recalled. "And he ended up throwing some strikes and his stuff is so good he doesn't need to worry about being too fine. When he tries to be too fine and make the perfect pitch, trouble happens. So I reminded him of that."

Hamm remembered nicely as he struck out Aaron McCann to get out of the inning and the Panthers would get just three more base runners against the Warriors right-hander in his last three innings of work with Hamm striking out seven more batters en route to his third double-digit strikeout performance of the year.

As for the Warriors offense, Panthers lefty Matt Vigil kept ECC off the scoreboard and with just one base runner through three innings. But Fernley knew his squad was ready to break out.

"Even though they were quick innings, I thought we were hitting the ball fairly hard," Fernley said. "I thought we were getting good barrel on the ball."

In the fourth, the Warriors finally barreled some balls that the Panthers defense could not catch. Brady Dorn began with a one-out single through the left side and then, one out later, Ryan Eastburn tanked an inside fastball deep over the right-center field wall for a two-run shot to cut the deficit to one.

 "I think the home run, emotion wise, sparked the dugout," Fernley said.

The Warriors scored two more runs to take the lead in the fifth inning as Darian Sylvester and Hunter Lewis hit back-to-back triples to tie the game at 3-3. Wissler then lined a sacrifice fly to center field to plate Lewis and give the Warriors their first lead of the game.

The Warriors broke the game wide-open in the sixth, scoring five times on five hits including a two-run double off the bat of Wissler to put the game out of reach.

El Camino will look for its 10th straight win and continue it's perfect start to SCC play on Saturday afternoon as the Warriors hit the road to take on Mount San Antonio College, a team that snapped a four-game losing streak at Cerritos College on Thursday afternoon.

 "I think Mount SAC is better than they are playing. They've had a couple of rough games and we'll have to be ready for them," Fernley said. "Like I told (the team), the goal is just to be better the next game. If we can do that every time this year then we'll be alright."