PCC Baseball Off To Historic Start, Rally To Beat West LA College

Trivia question: What year was the last time a Pasadena City College baseball team started a season with three straight wins? Hints: Gasoline cost 31 cents a gallon. The Super Bowl in professional football did not exist. The winner of the Grammy for best pop male vocalist was Frank Sinatra. And President Barack Obama was just a 3-year-old toddler. Answer: 1965.

Fifty-one years later, the 2016 Lancers matched that team’s 3-0 start by using an epic 12-run rally in the seventh inning to defeat West Los Angeles College, 16-10. The game was PCC’s home opener at Brookside Park’s Jackie Robinson Memorial Field.

The Lancers looked like it was heading to defeat as they trailed 10-4 going into the bottom of the seventh. The state’s top hitting team (.393) though responded with 12 runs as 12 straight batters reached safely during the monster rally. Lefty designated hitter Jeremy Conant launched a 3-run blast over the right field fence as the home run cut the Wildcats lead to 10-7. Second baseman Paul Christian hit a 2-run single to left center that tied it. First baseman Joe Quire delivered another 2-RBI hit through the shortstop hole that gave PCC the lead at 12-10.

The Lancers finished the inning by sending 16 batters to the plate, including belting nine hits with three walks and one hit-by-pitch. Shortstop Alex Briggs, Conant and catcher Justin Cage, who had two hits in the rally, each scored two runs in the inning.

“We didn’t play very good baseball up until that inning,” said PCC head coach Pat McGee, who wasn’t even born when the last Lancers team started 3-0. “We have some tremendous hitters. You can tell they really wanted to make up for our team’s poor defense along with some mental mistakes on the bathpaths over the first six innings. We dug a 6-run hole and then by the time the fireworks were over, we were up by six. I’m proud of the team’s poise with the pressure on.”

Six different Lancers drove in at least two RBI led by Conant and centerfielder Brandon Benson with three a piece. Cage batted 3-for-5 while Briggs, Benson and third baseman Sean Fassler, who came off the bench, also had 2-hit performances.

PCC starting pitcher Eddie Gutierrez got a no decision as all four runs he allowed were unearned over his three innings of work. Jose Martinez, the fourth of five Lancers pitchers on the day, hurled two innings, allowing two hits and one run to earn the victory. Closer Anthony Mizrahi pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to close it out.

After three games, the Lancers not only lead the state in batting but also in on-base percentage at .500. PCC has scored 40 runs on 48 hits in three victories. In comparison to McGee’s debut coaching season in 2015, that Lancers team took 16 games to reach 40 runs and his ’16 team hit the mark a full month earlier.

The 16 runs v. WLAC is the most by a Lancers team since Mar. 31, 2010 and that was a wild 18-17 loss to West Hills in a game that went 10 innings.

The Lancers will try to stay perfect when they travel to Ridgecrest to play Cerro Coso on Saturday, Feb. 13 in a 1 p.m. non-conference game.

Thursday’s game box v. West LA:

http://www.cccaastats.org/sports/bsb/2015-16/boxscores/20160211_jtai.xml