Baseball Now In 2nd Place By Itself In SCC

The Pasadena City College baseball team is going by the adage it's not how you start, but how you finish. That's been the case for the Lancers, who won their third straight South Coast Conference 3-game series where they lost the opener only to win the next two games in each of their series v. Mt. San Antonio, Los Angeles Harbor and now Long Beach City College.

State #12-ranked PCC improved to 6-3 in the SCC, alone in second place in the 9-team league, and 14-6 overall thanks to a 14-5 series-clinching win over LBCC on Saturday at Brookside Park's Jackie Robinson Field. 

It's hard to figure out who had a better week between shortstop Raider Tello and centerfielder Max Blessinger. In the finale, Blessinger batted 3-for-4 with a double and five RBI giving him a week's line of 8-for-16 (.500), seven runs scored, two doubles, a home run, and 11 RBI. He has nine ribbies in the last two wins and his 28 RBI places him sixth in the state and his 30 runs scored are second among all players in California.

Tello, who was just 1-for-5 but extended his season-long hitting streak to 19 games with a first-inning single, ended the 4-game week (including Monday's win over LA Harbor) 11-for-21 (.524), seven runs scored, two doubles, three home runs, and 11 RBI. Tello's average dropped to .483 overall (third in the state), but he still leads the state in total hits (42) and RBI with 30. 

Catcher Matt Rice had a big game, swinging 4-for-4, including a 2-run double in the sixth and totaling three RBI and two runs. Rightfielder Kenny Kim was 3-for-6 with a double, designated hitter Jakob Guardado went 2-for-5 with three runs scored and two RBI while leftfielder Aryonis Harrison batted 2-for-5. 

The Lancers bats had their best week of the season in collecting 58 hits, 48 runs. The 17 hits today v. the Vikings were a team season-high.

Coleman Mitchell picked up his first collegiate mound victory as he threw five innings, allowing seven hits, and charged for four runs on a pair of LBCC home runs. Nicolas Day hurled three innings of 2-hit relief (one run) and Kyle Noell struck out two in a scoreless ninth. 

It's the first SCC series that PCC won over Long Beach in 19 years. In 2003, the Lancers had future Major League Baseball reliever Brandon Kintzler (Milwaukee and five other teams, pitched in 2021 with Philadelphia) on the pitching staff and won 2-games-to-1 over the Vikings that season. Kinttzler threw a 6-hit, complete-game shutout in one of the victories. 

Next week, Pasadena plays a 3-game set v. first-place East Los Angeles (7-2, 11-9) beginning with a 2:30 p.m. home contest on Tuesday, Mar. 15.