Photo by: Yvette Blacknell
Photo by: Yvette Blacknell

Baseball Dominates Long Beach at Home

TORRANCE, Calif. - In a battle between the two teams leading the South Coast Conference South Division, El Camino came out firing en route to a 12-3 victory over the visiting Long Beach City Vikings on Tuesday afternoon at Warrior Field.  

The Warriors (24-4, 12-3) jumped to an early lead after going ahead 7-0 after the first two innings.  They chased the Vikings (18-11, 11-3) starter early in the second inning during a big inning where the Warriors scored five runs.

Max Pappas picked up the win after tossing six innings giving up eight hits, one walk, and fanning three batters.  Garrett Spicuzza tossed two scoreless innings and Zach Findlay tossed a scoreless inning to finish out the game.

The Warriors only outhit the Vikings offense fourteen-to-eleven hits.  However, the Vikings committed three errors and only seven of the twelve runs El Camino scored were earned.  Eight of the Warriors' starters tallied at least one hit. Joseph Borges and Aaron Orozco each had three hits in the contest.  Spencer Long and Taishi Nakawake had multi-hit games as well.

The Warriors took an early in the first inning after Spencer Long singled in Logan Young and Spencer Palmer to make it a 2-0 game.

In the second inning the Warriors sent all nine batters to the dish.  With two outs in the inning, the Warriors hit five consecutive base hits to score five runs.  Joseph Borges, Spencer Long, Ty Conrad, Aaron Orozco, and Matt Beserra were responsible for the five runs being driven in.

In the fourth inning, the Warriors added one run.  Aaron Orozco singled up the middle to score Joseph Borges after Borges hit a leadoff double.  

The Vikings got one run back in the sixth inning after Brett Wells singled in a run to score Mark Stanford.

The Warriors got three runs back in the bottom half of the inning. With two outs and bases loaded, Taishi Nakawake ripped a bases clearing double over the left fielder's head to make it a 11-1 game for the Warriors.  

The Vikings got two runs back in the top of the seventh.  Raul Gonzalez and Mark Stanford both hit RBI singles to make it an 11-3 game.  The Warriors got one of those runs back in the bottom half of the inning after Joseph Borges scored on a wild pitch to make it 12-3 and finish the scoring for the rest of the game.

El Camino College has now won six games in a row.  They are looking to win their sixth conference series in a row with one more win over the Vikings.  The Warriors will now head to Long Beach City College on Thursday afternoon for the second game of the three-game set.  First pitch is set for 2:30 PM.