No Sweep for Owls

Glendora, CA - The Citrus College Baseball team had a golden opportunity to pick up a sweep on Friday afternoon in the regular season WSC South finale with visiting Antelope Valley College. Instead, the Owls gave up three runs in the top of the eighth, and dropped back to .500 in conference play in a 4-2 loss.

 Citrus got things going in the right direction, getting an RBI single from a red hot Francisco Ramirez who brought in sophomore Rudy Casarez III in the bottom of the first. That was the end of the Citrus offense for the next seven innings though as they were kept off the scoreboard until the bottom of the eighth. 

Freshman starting pitcher Brennan Piceno would grab the bulls by the horn in his starting pitching debut, shutting down the Marauder offense, holding them to just two hits and one walk through the first five innings. Piceno would fan four batters, but would be left with the no decision, after Antelope tied the game up in the top of the sixth. 

The Owls ran into even more trouble in the top of the eighth, when the Marauders loaded up the bases. Antelope took the lead on a bases loaded balk and then get back to back RBI singles to push their lead to 4-1. 

Sophomore Ryan Aguilar would try to get the Owls back into the game with an RBI double that brought in sophomore Michael Carlos, but that was the last of the Citrus scoring as they fell by two scores. 

With the loss, Citrus drops to 10-8-1 overall and 3-3 in WSC South play. The Owls will take a break from conference action this week, and play their annual home and away series with local rival Mt. San Antonio College. The opening game is on the road in Walnut with first pitch set for 6:00 PM.