El Camino Comes Back to Slip Past Golden West, 9-7

Last week’s rain forced several South Coast Conference junior college baseball teams to rearrange their normal pitching rotations for this week’s make-up games, including conference leader El Camino College.

“The rain has left everybody scrambling,” El Camino Coach Tom Hicks said before the Warriors’ showdown with visiting Golden West of Huntington Beach on Thursday. “I’m not complaining, but it’s getting impossible to plan things out.”

Hicks forecast of unpredictability was confirmed against Golden West. El Camino reliever Dave Seward (2-3) got the spot start and yielded four runs on five hits in the top of the first inning.

But Seward settled down, and El Camino rebounded in the fourth with seven runs on three singles, two errors, two walks and a balk and collected the winning run in the seventh when third baseman Adrian Rodriguez singled home second baseman Jim Alexander, who had reached on a fielder’s choice.

The 9-7 win kept El Camino (13-4 in the SCC, 27-11 overall) one game ahead of Cerritos, which took a 3-0 contest from Fullerton on Thursday. Most teams have four games to play in the regular season, and El Camino is 2 1/2 games up on Fullerton and Golden West.

The state’s 11 conference first-place finishers earn automatic berths in one of four four-team state regionals. After the highest ranked second-place team is alloted a berth in one of the regionals, 16 teams with the next-best records from all conferences will play a two-round, single-elimination tournament to determine the remaining regional qualifiers.

The most comfortable route to the regionals is a conference championship, which El Camino can secure simply by winning all of its remaining games. Only Saturday’s contest with Mt. San Antonio College at El Camino should test the Warriors. Mt. Sac was 1 1/2 games behind El Camino before Thursday’s games.

Hicks intends to give staff aces Jeff Beck (10-2) and Lucio Chaidez (8-0) two starts each to close out conference play.

Beck, who lost to Golden West earlier this season, relieved Seward in the seventh inning Thursday after the Rustlers scored twice in the fifth to make it 7-6. Rustler Tom Smythe greeted Beck with a solo shot over the 378-foot sign in left-center field.

“Seward is a hard kid to figure,” said Golden West Coach Fred Hoover. “He’s not overpowering at all. He beats you with his brain.”

Seward underwent surgery in December to remove calcium deposits in his elbow and acknowledged that he felt rusty when the game began.