By Diego Linares and Dan Gudino
The baseball team went 2-1 over the weekend when they faced El Camino Compton Center on Thursday and Saturday, and Pasadena City College yesterday in an attempt to reach the playoffs.
East Los Angeles College currently has an overall record of 15-18, but is chasing El Camino College for third place in the South Coast Conference.
ELAC is 7-3 in its last 10 games and is 10-8 in conference play, while El Camino currently sits at 12-7 in conference play with two games left in its regular season.
“Whether they’re close or blowouts, it doesn’t matter right now, we’re in the situation where we just got to win,” ELAC head coach James Hines said after a 6-4 win against El Camino College on Thursday night.
In yesterday’s game, ELAC starting pitcher Julian Vizcarra went the distance and pitched nine shutout innings against Pasadena in a 6-0 win.
Pasadena head coach Pat Mcgee said that Vizcarra did a great job of using his fastball on both sides of the plate, and added that his team played one of the worst games of their season.
“You need to trust your defense 100 percent,” said Vizcarra, “I just tried to stay within myself and not try to do too much.”
Seve Romo, an infielder and pitcher, had two critical hits that led to three RBIs which kept ELAC in a close game on the Thursday win over El Camino College.
He then went on to pitch eight solid innings on Saturday at El Camino College, allowing a single run in a 2-1 loss.
“It’s huge, especially when you’re in a dogfight to win to try to get into the playoffs,” Romo said, when stressing the importance of defense after the Thursday game.
“The last couple games, I’ve been swinging (the bat) pretty well. I was just trying to stay short to the ball, not trying to do too much and hitting the ball hard.”
El Camino Compton head coach Shannon Williams complimented ELAC freshman pitcher Alberto Lopez, saying the pitcher kept ECC off balance while keeping the Huskies in the game.
“They’re a tough-minded team and they play situations real well,” Williams said.
“They made plays when they had to. Coach Hines has a real good team, and they’re fundamentally sound.”
ELAC will close out the season with a game at Brookside Park against Pasadena tomorrow at 2:30 p.m., then at home against Pasadena on Friday at 6 p.m.
ELAC will most likely miss the playoffs for the second straight season.
In 2014 ELAC advanced out of the single elimination game and went into the Best two-out-of-three series against Oxnard where they lost.
The Huskies best statistic this year was its pitching. It ranked second in the state in earned run average, where three of its pitchers ranked one, two and three in the SCC.
Romo led all Huskies with a 1.16 ERA, behind him was freshman Alberto Lopez (1.54) and Jose Vizcarra (1.90).
Romo proved to be one of the better players on the team.
Romo was relied on to pitch the most innings on the team this season. He not only led the team in pitching with the best ERA and team high 57 total strikeouts, he also led the team in homeruns with three.
Romo contributed a second best 21 runs batted in.