The SRJC baseball team is hoping to have something to celebrate with the Mothers on Sunday besides Mother Day. They are one win away for making the State Final Four. They got in that position on Saturday by rallying from an early 3-0 deficit to defeat San Joaquin Delta 9-4.
To get to the final four they will have to beat San Joaquin Delta again. San Joaquin Delta qualified for the Sunday show by defeating Chabot 12-6 in an elimination game which was played right after its loss to SRJC.
San Joaquin Delta was knocked into the elimination game part of the bracket in part by a rally that came from nowhere. The Mustangs had a 3-0 lead after the third inning. Taylor Martin was at first for the Bear Cubs with two outs. Martin was the third base runner of the game for SRJC, all of them reaching base on a walk. They were still looking for its first hit. Nico Filice took care of that with a single. That opened the flood gates. Filice hit was first of five consecutive singles and when the inning ended SRJC had a 4-3 lead.
The Bear Cubs didn’t stop there. They followed that inning up with a three run fifth to make it 7-3. The big hit was a two run single by Ryan Xepoleas that wrapped up the rally. Xepoleas is on a roll this weekend. It nine at bats, he has seven hits and has driven in five runs. Talk about your turnaround. Xepoleas went into the weekend in a 0-19 slump.
After giving up the early runs, three Bear Cubs pitchers clamped things down, giving up one unearned run the rest of the way. JJ Jamerson pitched three innings and got the win to raise his record to 6-0.
So it will be SRJC and San Joaquin Delta again. It will be the fifth meeting this season between the two. They have split the first four games. The game on Saturday had no similarity to the three game series that the teams played in mid-April. San Joaquin Delta won the first two games by one run, the first going 11 innings and SRJC won the third game 4-1 in ten innings.
So SRJC has a .500 record against San Joaquin Delta. If you can they have at least that at the end of Sunday, they are heading to the State Final 4.
SRJC only has to look back to last week to realize what can happen to a team that needs to win two games or go home. They were the team in that position.
STATE PLAYOFF OVERVIEW
Sierra is still alive. The team that tied SRJC for the Big 8 championship and are a No. 2 seed in the Nor Cal bracket, lost on Friday. They needed to win two games on Saturday and Sunday to advance to the state final four.
They are halfway done with two wins in elimination games on Saturday. On Sunday they need two wins over Feather River, who is the No. 7 seed.
SEASON OVER FOR SSU SOFTBALL
It was a frustrating ending to the season for the SSU softball team. They had chance after chance down the stretch, but couldn’t come up with the big hit and they lose to No. 1 seed Dixie State 3-1.
Sonoma State left two base runners on in each of the last four innings. In three of those four innings they had the runners on with under two outs. They went one of eight in that situation in the last four innings of the game. That one hit came in the seventh and it didn’t drive in a run. They did end up getting its only run in the seventh and had runners at second and third when the game ended.
Sonoma State ends the season 37-21.
MULLIGAN
If you were told Cal State Los Angeles outhit the Sonoma State Baseball team 17-16 you might think that it was a pretty good game.
You would be wrong.
Cal State Los Angeles led from the start and pulled away for a 15-3 win to force a championship game for the CCAA post season tournament.
Cal State Los Angeles put the game away with a six run fourth which gave them a 12-3 lead. Sonoma State committed five errors in the game, which led to four unearned runs.
Both teams will have a full bullpen available for today’s championship game. CSLA’s Omar Jiminez pitched a complete game despite the 16 hits by Sonoma State. Sonoma State meanwhile only used two pitchers.
Sonoma State may have an advantage over Cal State LA in the title game because they maybe a little tired after a day of running the bases. It an elimination game right before the Sonoma State game, they defeated Cal State Monterey Bay 14-3. All in all it was a fun day for them. They outscored their opponents 29-6 in the two games while collecting 38 hits.
This will be the third straight game that Sonoma State will be meeting CS Los Angeles. The two teams have split the two games in the CCAA tournament after Sonoma State took three of four in its series with them in late April.
Today’s game starts at noon.
Win or lose it looks like Sonoma State will be in the NCAA Division II Western Regional playoffs which are next weekend.
My email address is jacpasquini@comcast.net