Owls Avoid Sweep and Stop Five Game Slide

Glendora, CA - The Citrus College Baseball team avoided a season series sweep at the hands of Los Angeles Valley College on Saturday afternoon with their 6-4 win over the Monarchs. In the process, the Owls were also to finally stop a five game slide that nearly dragged across three weeks.

The Owls kicked off the scoring when sophomore Joseph Morreale made his season debut in the field with an RBI single back up the middle of the field that brought in sophomore Joshua Chua in the bottom of the second. Morreale did it again in the bottom of the fourth with another RBI single that made it 2-0. Freshman Marcos Campos would lace a double to left field, bringing in two more runs before the inning was up to push the Owls' lead to 4-0.

Citrus kept it going in the bottom of the fifth when freshman Grant Ponder doubled to left-center field, driving in freshman Steven Mendoza and Chua to make it 6-0.

Things nearly came off the rails for the Owls in the top of the seventh inning, when the Monarchs brought in four runs, but freshman Davis Radcliffe would get the final two outs of the inning, after giving up a three run home run, and then pitch a clean top of the eighth, before freshman Joshua Aguilar slammed the door in the top of the ninth, by setting Valley down in order.

Freshman Roberto Baldanebro would get the victory on the day, going 6.1 innings giving up six hits and fanning five. Morreale would finish 2 for 3 at the plate with those two RBIs, while Chua was 3 for 4 with half of the Owls runs scored on the day.

With the win, Citrus improves to 11-12-1 on the season and 4-5 in WSC South play. They will return home on Tuesday afternoon to host SoCal #6 Glendale College for a 2:30 PM first pitch.