Glendale Community College baseball walks off with fifth straight victory

GLENDALE — Perhaps it was a lack of capitalizing on opportunities.

Or maybe it was just a flare for the dramatic.

No matter the point of analysis, Glendale Community College’s baseball team continued its victorious ways Saturday afternoon, allowing a game it had long been in control of seemingly slip away before sophomore Chris Colarossi singled home pinch-runner Seiji Kusakariba for a 4-3 Western State Conference South Division walk-off win over rival L.A. Mission at Stengel Field.

“We got away with one,” Vaqueros Coach Chris Cicuto smiled after GCC’s fifth win in a row equated to a three-game sweep of the Eagles (9-15, 3-6 in division).

GCC (18-6, 7-2), which maintained its spot in first place in the WSC South, got an excellent start from freshman pitcher Felix Rubi and led throughout, but despite having base runners in every inning and 15 in total could not put the game away.

Owning leads of 1-0 after the first inning, 2-0 after the third, 2-1 after the fourth and 3-1 following the sixth, GCC saw its missed opportunities catch up to it when Mission’s Josh Carlin (two for three, home run, walk, two runs batted in, two runs) doubled in a run to cut the score to 3-2 in the top of the eighth. Jose Holguin then doubled in Carlin to make it an all new ballgame.

“It was a little concerning,” said Colarossi of the Vaqueros allowing the Eagles to hang around. “The entire year, though, we’ve been a team that’s finished games.”

That rang true as freshman sidearmer AJ Jimenez, who earned the win, pitched a perfect ninth for the Vaqueros, setting the table for the heroics in the bottom of the stanza. With one away, sophomore Kamalu Neal lifted a stand-up double to center field and was promptly replaced by Kusakariba.

Up stepped Colarossi, who promptly went the opposite way to right field off reliever Gonzo Rios. Kusakariba rounded third and the throw to the plate had him beat, but he sidestepped the tag to score the winning run.

“I knew everything was gonna be away,” said Colarossi, who was three for four with the one RBI. “I wasn’t really trying to do a whole lot.

“I kind of thought he was gonna throw off-speed, so when I saw fastball, I went for it.”

It was an approach lauded by Colarossi’s skipper.

“When you have one of your hottest hitters at the play, you feel pretty good about it,” Cicuto said. “When you try not to do too much, that’s the name of the game. You take what they give you.

“He leads by example every day.”

While Colarossi’s walk-off was the exclamation point to the breezy afternoon at the ballpark, the story for Glendale was very much good pitching and unopportunistic offense.

“Pitching’s been our strength all year,” Cicuto said.

Yet, Rubi had been excellent out of the bullpen all season and was making his first start. He dazzled to the tune of five innings of one-run ball, allowing just two hits, striking out five and walking none. Of his 58 pitches, 42 were strikes as he faced just two over the minimum, getting ahead in the count with 14 first-pitch strikes to 17 batters.

While he pitched with a lead throughout, Rubi wasn’t given an abundance of run support considering the chances the Vaqueros had.

In the first, a one-out double by Frank Garriola (two hits) was the first of 10 hits on the day for GCC. No. 3 hitter Jared Akins then bounced a first-pitch single to right field to score the hustling Garriola.

Clean-up hitter and Crescenta Valley High product Troy Mulcahey then stepped up and lifted a ball to the left-field fence. The left fielder leaped to make the catch, but Akins seemed to think it was dropped, so after he moved back to first base, he ran back to second and was subsequently doubled off to end the inning. It was the first of three outs on the base paths for GCC.

“We made some mistakes on the bases which obviously didn’t help us,” Cicuto said.

Liam Shibata had the first of his two doubles in the second, but was stranded.

However, the bottom of the third had all the makings of the beginning of a blowout for GCC.

A leadoff walk to Neal was followed by a double to right-center field by Colarossi. After a flyout to shallow center field left the runners at second and third, Mission rolled the dice and intentionally walked Akins to bring up Mulcahey with the bases loaded and one out.

The first offering to Mulcahey was a breaking ball off his left arm for an RBI to score Neal for a 2-0 lead.

Cristian Montes then took a full-count offering to right field. The runner at third base broke, but ran back and Mulcahey mistakenly broke for second, only to get doubled off to end the inning.

Mulcahey’s next at bat came to lead off the sixth and he pulled a shot off the left-field fence for a home run in a scene familiar to his days at Crescenta Valley, where he was a one-time All-Area Baseball Player of the Year.

“Troy’s been a spark plug for us,” Cicuto said. “He made up for [the baserunning gaffe] – somewhat. But he’s always hustling and playing hard and you love to see that.”

Mulcahey’s roundtripper – which was his ninth of the season and tied him for second in the state, according to the California Community College Athletic Assn. website – put the Vaqueros up, 3-1.

Rubi’s only run allowed came when Carlin pulled a ball over the right-field fence for a leadoff home run in the fourth. It was also Mission’s first hit of the game.

Rubi gave way to Tei Vanderford (St. Francis) in the sixth. Vanderford battled through a pair of walks in the sixth to throw 2 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.

But the Eagles finally broke through in the eighth only for Colarossi and Co. to rally for their first one-run win of the season.

“This was a big one for us,” said Colarossi, who leads the Vaqueros with a .409 batting average. “It gives us a lot of confidence going into next week.”

Glendale has a three-game series with Citrus on deck with away games Tuesday and Saturday and a return to Stengel sandwiched in between Thursday.

GCC is tied atop the standings with College of the Canyons and is currently ranked sixth in the California Community College Baseball Coaches Assn. Southern California poll, with COC checking in at No. 4.

“I know that we’ve been improving,” said Cicuto, whose team is looking to defend its division title and win its fifth over the last six seasons. “We’re learning from our mistakes and that’s always been effective for us the last few years.”