Citrus Baseball, Softball Seasons Come to an End; Glendora Baseball, Softball News

In Glendora High School Baseball news: The defending CIF Champion Tartans continue their quest for another Baseline League title. After suffering only their third loss of the season last week, the Tartans (15-6-1, 10-3) took both their games against Alta Loma winning 7-4 on the road on Wednesday and then coming back home Friday to finish the week with a 6-3 win over the visiting Braves.

 The Tartans took a 3-1 lead into the 5^th inning of Friday’s game mostly on the strength of solid pitching through five innings by senior pitcher Nicholas Hall and timely hits by Nick Cooksey and Josh Luevanos. Alta Loma came back with two runs in the last two innings, but the Tartans countered with a three run game winning home run by catcher Brennan Salagado.

 “They’re a gutty team,” said Tartans coach Dan Henley. “They’ve struggled lately to win games but they’re like every team in our league and we saw what they’re capable of they’re gritty, they came back on us from three runs to tie it, so we knew that they weren’t going to fold.”

 The character statement again today was huge and we’ve done quite a bit of that this year,” said Henley, adding Glendora has been finishing off innings well, despite some inconsistencies. “We didn’t play particularly well in all phases of the game, we gave away some at bats, we played a little shaky on defense a little bit, and we didn’t pitch as well as we were capable of, but in bits and pieces it was good enough and it was a real team victory because we made the plays when we had to.”

 In Glendora Softball News: Glendora has lost four out of their last five games including four straight. Following an 11-0 loss to Etiwanda Tuesday afternoon, the Tartans surrendered 18 runs on 14 hits on Thursday in an 18-4 loss to Rancho Cucamonga. Rancho’s Caitlin King hurt the Tartans by going 2 for 4 and four RBIs.

 After a key loss to Upland earlier in the year Glendora coach Reese Mitchell said the team was hurt by a lot of kids playing out of their spots. 

 “We’ve got a great group of kids, individually they’re very good academically, they’re good citizens and as coach you always want that passion,” said Mitchell. “We’ve got good kids but sometimes kids are kids, you gotta want to have a passion to play. We’re young. We’ve got a lot of youth sprinkled with some veterans but you gotta have those kids at the top pushing dragging and digging, sometimes it’s there, but sometimes it’s not.”

In St Lucy’s Softball News: The Regents (11-12, 6-7) split their two games against Ayala this week and fell to fourth place in the Sierra League Standings. behind another impressive pitching performance by junior pitcher Danielle O’Toole. In Thursday’s away game against Ayala, St. Lucy’s spotted the Bulldogs 6 runs on 7 hits and almost came back to tie, scoring 5 runs in the final inning, but their rally fell one run short to lose 6-5. The Regents will try to end the season on a winning note with two games this week against Claremont.

 Citrus Softball: The Owls’ (23-15, 14-4) season ended over the weekend as they lost 2 out of 3 games against host Cypress College in their California Community College Athletic Association best-of-three playoff series. The Owls fell short in their last inning rally in a 3-2 loss on Saturday. They then came back strong in game two with a 7-1 win, but were bested in the third and deciding game 9-6. With the win Cypress advanced to next weekend’s Super Regionals.  

 Citrus Baseball: The Owls (20-20, 12-9) came up one run short in their 2011 CCCAA playoff series against the Rio Hondo College over the weekend. Despite losing the first game on Friday afternoon to the Foothill Conference champion Roadrunners 6-5, Citrus rebounded on Saturday morning with an 11-5 win in game 2. Rio Hondo was ranked No.1 in Southern California, but the Owls forced a third and deciding game by scoring 11 runs on 14 hits as freshman pitcher Mikey Ramirez earned his 5^th win of the year. Sophomore pitcher Justin Grijalva was called on to pitch in the third and deciding game, but after Citrus jumped to a 2-1 lead, the Roadrunners finally broke through in the bottom of the 8^th by scoring two runs on a two out single to end the Owls’ season.

 In Citrus College Golf News: The Citrus College Men’s Golf season concluded last week at the WSC Championships at Los Serranos Golf Course, with the exception of one lone golfer who advanced to the Southern California Championships today at the Bermuda Dunes Country Club in Palm Desert. That player is freshman Shane Favinger who qualified for the championships by virtue of his two-round total of 150. Shavinger shot a five over par 77 in the first round and a one over par 73 in the second 18 holes.