Posted: April 24, 2015 | Updated: April 27, 2015 | Written by Edith Noriega
The Riverside City College baseball season almost drew to a conclusion with a 4-2 loss against Golden West College on April 21 but managed to gain a No. 18 seed in the CCCAA baseball Southern California Regional bracket.
The Tigers will now go on and play in a single elimination game at No. 15 seed Cerritos College April 28 at 2 p.m.
This will be the first meeting of the year between RCC and Cerritos since 2001.
Prior the Tigers had their eyes set on the must win game against Golden West with their leading pitcher on the mound, Austin Sodders (7-1, 2.03 ERA and 58 strikeouts).
With a 1-0 RCC lead, Sodders was pitching a stellar five inning shutout but quickly hit a bump on the road in the top of the sixth inning when the Rustlers Chris Willia RBI single down the left field line and in the top of the seventh inning Dillon Persinger hit a single off the left foot of Sodders ricocheting through the right side of the infield.
It was a green light after that for the Rustlers with a double steal for Persinger and a single by Kyle Moore let Persinger score on an infield out, tying the game 2-2.
Now a tie ballgame and a potential extra inning game looming it all came down to the top of the ninth inning.
With one out RCC pitcher David Robles walked Persinger and had advanced to second on a passed ball.
Moore then hit a RBI triple deep to right field thus scoring on an crucial error by the Tigers catcher giving the Rustlers a 4-2 lead.
RCC was then shutout in order in the bottom of the ninth inning giving Golden West a 4-2 win and sole possession of first place in the Orange Empire Conference.
“We can reinvent the game, just do the same thing we do and go from there, we just got to try to secure a win,” head coach Dennis Rodgers said. “It’s on us our failures are our failures, so it is what it is.”
The Tigers concluded their last regular season game in a 5-1 loss at Golden West.
RCC needed to have won six of the last eight remaining games of the season in order to be considered for further play but had only won three.
The Tigers baseball team ended the regular season with a 21-15 overall record, 9-12 OEC record and a winning percent of .583.
