Baseball Season Ends at Santa Barbara

Austin Sargent hit a homerun in game 1 of the Eagles play-off series with Santa Barbara, but it wasn't enough as MSJC lost two games and saw their season come to an end at 30-12.  (Jerry Lee Palad-MSJC
Austin Sargent hit a homerun in game 1 of the Eagles play-off series with Santa Barbara, but it wasn't enough as MSJC lost two games and saw their season come to an end at 30-12. (Jerry Lee Palad-MSJC

The MSJC baseball team saw their 30 win season come to an end in the first round of the 3C2A Southern California Regional Tournament over the weekend as they lost two games at Santa Barbara City College.

In the opening game of the series on Friday the two teams were locked in a pitcher's duel through five and a half innings with the Eagles trailing just 2-0, but in the bottom of the 6th Santa Barbara pushed 3 runs across to take command of the game 5-0.  The Vaqueros would go on to add 3 more in the bottom of the 8th to push the game out of reach.  MSJC's only run of the game came on a solo homerun in the top of the 9th by Austin SargentJoseph Romero pitched the first 6 innings of the game for the Eagles allowing 9 hits, 5 runs, just 3 earned, and struck out 4.

Game two on Saturday was a must win for MSJC as they looked to force a third, but again the Eagle bats were kept quiet.  In a game where the Eagles were designated the home team, SBCC built another 6-0 lead and then piled on 7 more runs in the top of the 9th to win 13-1.  Christian Smith had the Eagles only RBI of the game with a run scoring single in the bottom of the 7th.  Dominick Lombardi and Alex Pintal each had two hits in the loss.  Julian Castro started the game on the mound for MSJC and went 7 innings allowing 6 runs, although only 2 were earned to suffer the loss.

The Eagles season ends with a record of 30-12, MSJC finished second in the Inland Empire Athletic Conference.  The program was making their second straight play-off appearance and their 30 wins was the most at the school since 2009.