Baseball Completes the Sweep over Pasadena

TORRANCE, Calif. --- El Camino College completed a critical three-game sweep over Pasadena with a 9-2 South Coast Conference victory Saturday afternoon at Warrior Field.

The Warriors (28-9, 16-5) have now won six straight SCC series after being swept in the first conference series of the year by Long Beach. The Warriors have moved into a tie for second place with Long Beach, just one game back of first-place Mount San Antonio, whom the Warriors will face in the final series of the regular season.

The Lancers (26-11, 14-7) are now in fourth place in the conference, two games back of second and three back of the top spot with three to play.

On Saturday, the Warriors pounded out 11 hits en route to victory while also getting a splendid effort from Elijah Tolsma. The Warriors right-hander went seven strong innings and gave up just one earned run on six hits. He walked two and struck out two to pick up his third victory of the year.

Offensively, Theo Forshey led the way as he was 3-for-3 with two RBI. He was a triple shy of the cycle as he recorded a double and a home run. Ben Griffin, Daniel Murrillo and Ethan Felix all collected two hits and two RBI on the day to propel ECC to the sweep.

The Warriors built up a 5-1 lead through seven innings but the Lancers made it interesting in the eighth against reliever Neil Feist. Feist got two outs with a double sprinkled in between but then ran into serious trouble as Issac Luevano, Andrew Scannell and Max Blessinger all singled to drive in a run and load the bases for their top hitter, Raider Tello. The Lancers' designated hitter entered the game with a batting average over .400. But Feist locked in and struck Tello out on three straight pitches to end the threat and keep the Warriors lead at three.

The offense put the game away in the bottom half of the inning, scoring four runs on four hits, highlighted by a two-run double all the way to the center field wall by Felix.

Feist came back out and worked a perfect ninth to seal the deal.

The Warriors will now host Mt. SAC on Tuesday at Warrior Field with first pitch set for 2:30 p.m. The Mounties need any combination of a win and loss by Long Beach to claim the title outright. For the Warriors to win the title outright, they would need to sweep or win two of three from the Mounties and then get help with at least one Long Beach loss next week against Compton.