Vaqueros Decisive 7th Spoils Huskies Home Opener

by Cerwin D Haynes

With a full crowd on hand, East LA College baseball hoped to cap off opening night - the first in two years - with a win in front of the spirited Huskies' faithful. But the Glendale Community College Vaqueros had other plans: an opportunistic seventh inning plus a strong relief effort on the mound would give visiting GCC a 5-3 win over the Pack.

With the scored tied at three in the top of the seventh, ELAC was one out away from ending the inning when LF Alex Mills lifted a fly ball to right that RF Jeffrey Smith appeared to had tracked down. But he dropped it for a three-base error, and Hans Seo - the runner on first - rounded the bases hom for the go-ahead run. The next batter, Elijah Hilton, rapped a solid single up the middle to score Mills for insurance.

Glendale's Aedan Cunningham (1-0) netted his first win of the season by pitching four innings of scoreless relief for starter Aaron Suval. ELAC's Francisco Dominguez (0-1) would take the tough-luck loss, giving up two unearned runs in four innings out of the bullpen.

HUSKY BITS:

• East LA's Dominguez may have taken the loss, but he did strike out eight batters in his four innings of work. He came on for starter Julian Tellez in the fifth inning.
• Huskies' shortstop Antonio Gomez (2-4) knocked in two of ELAC's three runs in the bottom of the second inning, where East would ultimately take the lead.
• Both teams tallied 13 strikeouts apiece.

NEXT UP

ELAC will hop on the bus tomorrow morning to head down to Citrus College for a 1pm game versus the Owls.