Hamm Tosses Gem and Bats Produce Two Homers as No. 2 Warriors Beat Falcons

TORRANCE, Calif. – Freshman Cassius Hamm had his third longest outing of the season and recorded his fourth double-digit strikeout performance Thursday afternoon as El Camino College collected its 14th consecutive victory with a 6-1 South Coast Conference win over Cerritos at Warrior Field.

Hamm was outstanding for the Warriors (22-2, 9-0) as he came out of the gate retiring 10 straight Falcons (8-16, 3-6) to start the game. He would go seven and 2/3 innings and allowed one run on four hits. He walked four and struck out 10 to overtake teammate Taylor Rashi for the overall strikeout lead in the state.

Offensively, the Warriors scratched out eight hits, half of them for extra bases including solo home runs from Trevor Casanova and Noah Barba. Casanova finished the day 2-for-2 at the dish with two runs scored and three walks while Barba was 2-for-3 with three runs scored. Both players were two hits away from hitting for the cycle as Casanova needed a single and a double while Barba needed the single and triple.

The Warriors struck first in the second inning as Barba led off the frame with a bomb over the scoreboard in right field to make it 1-0, his first homer of the season.

It stayed that way until the fifth inning when Casanova launched a 2-1 offering from Cerritos starter Vincent Fuentes and deposited the pitch over the right-center field wall to put ECC up 2-0.

The Warriors would score at least a run in every inning after that but had to fade a couple of threats by the Falcons, the most severe in the eighth inning.

With ECC leading 4-1, Hamm started the eighth with two straight strikeouts and seemed to be on his way to cruising through another inning. But Christopher Gomez threw a wrench in that as he hit a chopper to third that Hunter Lewis could not handle cleanly and the Falcons had a runner on after the error. Jorge Rodriguez and Ramon Bramasco each followed with walks and that was the end of Hamm's day.

The Warriors summoned right-hander Jake Carr out of the bullpen and he proceeded to induce a flyout from Rolando Nichols to squash the threat and preserve ECC's three-run cushion.

Carr would get through the ninth and pick up his fourth save of the season, allowing just one hit and striking out a batter.

The Warriors and Falcons will conclude their series on Saturday. They will resume their opening game of the series which was suspended due to rain on Tuesday and will pick up action in the bottom of the eighth inning with two on and one out for the Falcons and ECC leading 4-1. The teams will then play the third and final game of the series once the first game concludes.