SANTA BARBARA, CA – The SBCC baseball team began its season by dominating its doubleheader with West LA on Friday, handling the Wildcats by finals of 14-2 and 12-3.
The Vaqueros (2-0) put up at least 11 hits in both games, hitting .333 as a team led by Tyler Imbach's three hits and five RBI. The team's pitching also enjoyed a phenomenal effort, with five of the six Vaqueros who saw the mound ending the season-opening weekend without giving up a single earned run.
SBCC 14, West LA 2
The first game got out to a bit of a slow start as the Vaqueros were held hitless through two innings. Once the hits started though, they didn't stop.
The Wildcats took a 1-0 lead thanks to a strong first inning and doubled it by scoring on a wild pitch in the third. In the bottom half of the third, Jackson Haskell turned a walk into a run thanks to Imbach's single up the middle for SBCC's first score of the season.
Things quickly escalated in the fourth. The first four Vaqueros reached and Daniel Hirose and Sebastian Arguelles both tallied RBIs with back-to-back hits towards the left half of the field.
Leading 3-2 with the bases loaded, Imbach hit a big double to right center, bringing in three runs to blow the game open.
JP Boyle scored in the fifth and the Vaqueros did the rest of their damage with seven more runs in the sixth, highlighted by homers from Haskell and Daniel Ghiorso on back-to-back at bats to cap the day's scoring.
Coleton Dahl (1-0) and Aiden Garza split time on the mound, with Dahl earning the win and tossing seven of SBCC's 11 strikeouts. Garza gave up just one hit and no runs in four innings.
SBCC 12, West LA 3
Game two got out to a similar start, with the Vaqueros waiting until the third inning to get on the board before running away with it. SBCC scored in four straight innings before capping things off with a big five-run eighth.
Leadoff centerfielder Carson Cahoy shared team-high honors with first baseman Presley Kosciusko registering three hits apiece. Kosciusko and left fielder Patrick Walsh also both had two RBI, while the third baseman Ghiorso had a team-high three RBI all coming on a double in the bottom of the eighth.
Imbach helped opening the scoring by grounding out with the bases loaded in the third, scoring Marcus Weinzimer. Ghiorso scored soon after on a sac fly by Kosciusko to make it 2-0.
Walsh picked up his first of two RBIs with a solo homer to left for SBCC's only run in the fifth. He helped make it 7-0 the following inning on a triple to left to bring in Kosciusko.
In the eighth, the Vaqueros once again got their first four batters on base, leading to an Arguelles RBI walk. Soon after, the Vaqueros scored on a wild pitch and one walk later, Ghiorso was set up for his big three-run double to finish things off.
Four Vaquero pitchers saw work in this one, with Jake Villar (1-0) going five shutout innings with one hit allowed and eight strikeouts for the win.
NEXT UP
Santa Barbara travels to Hartnell on Thursday for its next game starting at 2:00 p.m.
