Owls Hold Off Bakersfield; Win Fourth Straight

Glendora, CA -- The Citrus College Baseball team held off a hard charging Bakersfield College squad on Thursday afternoon to earn their fourth straight win. The Owls built up a 5-1 lead, before hanging out for the 5-4 victory.

As they have been known to do this year, the Owls jumped on their opposition early. Sophomore's Matthew Reynoso and Michael Bradley each drove in a run in the bottom of the first, to stake Citrus to an early 2-0 lead. Citrus kept it going in the second when Reynoso drove in another thanks to an RBI single back up the middle of the field that made it 3-0.

With an early lead at his back, freshman Nicholas Sergi (3-1) went to work on the hill. Sergi was nearly flawless through his first five innings of work. Sergi gave up just one hit in that stretch and still managed face the minimum possible amount of batters thanks to getting the next batter after that hit to ground out into a double play.

As Sergi kept dealing, the Owls gave him a little more breathing room in the bottom of the sixth. After the Renegades got their first run off Sergi in the top half of the inning, the Owls came back with two more, one via an error by the Renegades and the other thanks to an RBI infield single from sophomore Jonathon Reynoso.

Bakersfield would finally get to Sergi in the top of the seventh when he made what was really his only mistake of the day, when he hung a pitch to Bakersfield's Junior Felix that resulted in a three run home run for the Renegades that made it 5-4. Still Sergi did more than enough to earn the win, as he gave way to sophomore Jayson De La Pena who came in and slammed the door shut, earning his second consecutive save and his third of the season, getting the final five outs of the game.

In the win, the Owls were paced by Matthew Reynoso's 2 for 3 effort at the plate with a run and a pair of RBI's. Freshman Troy Resch also was 2 for 3 with a score, and sophomore Nathan Virgen went 2 for 4 with an RBI and a score.

With the win, Citrus improves to 13-11 overall and 6-5 in WSC South play. The Owls will kick-off an important two game set this Saturday when they host second place College of the Canyons at 1:00 PM.