Glendale college baseball wraps up back-to-back titles

GLENDALE — In the regular season finale for the Glendale Community College baseball team against West Los Angeles at Stengel Field, the Vaqueros had one more step to take to win the Western Conference South Division title outright just one day after claiming a share of the crown on the road against the same opponent.

On Friday afternoon, the Vaqueros took that step, defeating the visiting Wildcats, 11-5 , to claim the conference crown outright for the second straight season and the fifth time over the past six years.

“Great win, great team win,” Vaquero Chris Colarossi said. “We’ve been doing it all year long, just been playing together [and] playing great baseball. We are back-to-back conference champs and looking to have a good postseason here.”

Glendale (28-8, 17-4 in division) had to play the season finale without head coach Chris Cicuto, who was suspended for Friday’s contest after getting ejected the day before for arguing with the umpire during the Vaqueros’ 15-7 road victory over West Los Angeles, which lost 11 games in a row to end the season. Ivan Lopez stepped in as acting head coach on Friday.

“It is one of our goals we can check off our checklist,” Lopez said of the conference title. “It is pretty amazing and exciting for these guys, too, especially the sophomores. It is pretty cool to get it done, especially at home.”

Moments after the Vaqueros celebrated by dogpiling in the middle of the field, Cicuto arrived and, soon after that, his team doused him with a bucket of ice water to celebrate.

“We missed him. That’s why we got him pretty good with the ice bath,” Colarossi said. ¿

Glendale scored at least one run in six of the eight innings the Vaqueros came to the plate, including four in the opening frame.

Colarossi got the first of the Vaqueros’ 15 hits against West Los Angeles (10-25, 4-17) to lead off the game and later scored the first run of the contest on a two-run triple by Jared Akins.

Colarossi ended up three for five, with three singles and two runs scored. Akins also scored two runs to go along with his two runs batted in. Vaquero Christian Montes scored a game-high three runs. In total, the freshman finished three for four, including a double, with an RBI.

Glendale catcher Kamalu Neal drove in a game-high three runs, although none came on his only hit of the contest, a double in the fifth inning. The sophomore was hit by a pitch by Wildcats starter Grant Livornese with the bases loaded to bring in the final run of the first inning. The Hawaiian native then drove in two more runs with sacrifice flies in the fourth and sixth innings.

“I was just trying to go middle and away and find something I could drive to score a run,” Neal said.

Liam Shibata was the other Vaquero to collect multiple RBI, with two. The freshman from Canada drove in the third run of the day with a single in the first and another one in the fourth on a ground out.

Glendale used four pitchers in Friday’s conference-clinching victory.

Left-hander John Vergara made his fourth start of the season, going three innings, in which the Wildcats scored four runs. Angel Lerma pitched the fourth and fifth innings to pick up his second win of the season. With the bases loaded in the fifth after a Vaquero error allowed a run to come across making the score 8-5, Lerma struck out the final two batters he faced to end the threat.

Crescenta Valley product Cole Currie pitched a scoreless sixth inning before Marco Quintanar took over on the mound for the final three innings for the save. The freshman left-hander put down the West Los Angeles batters in order in his first two innings while striking out three. He allowed two singles to begin the ninth, but a double play quickly followed before he got Wildcat Madden Laing to pop out in foul territory for the final out.

“We staffed it today. Everybody did their job,” Lopez said. “We kind of had a plan going into it. ...Quintanar came out with really good stuff toward the end, so I left him in there to close it out.”

Up next for Glendale is the postseason, in which the Vaqueros will be assured of at least playing their first series at home.

“Winning conference championships is awesome, but we’re not done yet,” Lopez said.