By Rogelio Alvarez
Baseball lost 3-4 to South Coast Conference rivals El Camino College last Saturday at home after a series of errors in extra innings.
“Other than our pitchers pitching well again like we’ve done all year, there’s zero positives. We struck out 16 times. We made four or five errors. There’s zero positives in that,” East Los Angeles College head coach James Hines said.
The Huskies are now 1-2 in conference play and 6-9 overall. ELAC won the first game of the three-game series against El Camino but lost the remaining two games.
“It’s all experience. I’m a sophomore on the team so games like this just mature you. As a leader, you need to express to the freshmen that every fight is never over until the last out,” sophomore second baseman Johnny Salgado said.
El Camino had a 2-0 lead in the top of the fifth inning.
In the bottom of the fifth, ELAC sophomores shortstop Shun Tsunoda and first baseman Larson Anzaldo combined to hit a double and single, respectively.
ELAC freshman right fielder Alex Carrillo and designated hitter Travis Macfarland kept the momentum going and batted in Tsunoda and Anzaldo to tie the game at 2-2.
Carillo and Macfarland each had one RBI. Sophomore starting pitcher Seve Romo scored an RBI to again tie the game at 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth.
After reaching extra innings, the Huskies produced three errors in the last inning, giving El Camino freshman second baseman Kyle Henmi the chance to capitalize on the poor defending and record an RBI.
“We put a lot of time into hitting and still can’t hit. We need to flip the script and put more time into playing defense. Guys can go to the park and hit on their own,” Hines said.
Romo pitched for seven innings and allowed five hits.
“We made a play or two in the outfield. Those are the things that we expect to make but we also dropped a fly ball in right that we probably should’ve caught, which led to an unearned run,” Hines said.
Hines was not happy with his team’s performance and sounded upset while talking to his team after the game.
The Huskies’ losing streak continued last night after losing to Los Angeles Harbor College, 7-1.
ELAC can break its losing streak when it host Harbor tomorrow at 6 p.m. and concludes the three-game series at Harbor on Saturday at noon.