COMMUNITY COLLEGE BASEBALL ROUNDUP : Golden West Rolls Past Saddleback

Freshman Gary Christopherson doesn’t know why he can hit home runs in bunches, but it keeps happening.

Christopherson hit home runs in consecutive at-bats, in the third and fifth innings, to help Golden West College to an 11-2 victory over Saddleback Tuesday at Golden West.

It was the third time Christopherson has hit at least two home runs in a game this season.

He hit two home runs against Cypress, then came back in the next game to hit three against Orange Coast College.

“I can’t explain it,” Christopherson said. “I’m just happy I’m hitting the ball hard.”

Christopherson hit a 390-foot single in the first inning Tuesday.

It was a long fly ball that Gerad Cawhorn, who was on first, made sure wasn’t caught before heading to second.

In the third, Christopherson hit a long fly ball over the 400-foot fence in left-center. His second home run went well over the left-field fence and into the street.

Christopherson flied out to the infield in his next at-bat, the seventh, but had an RBI single in the eight for Golden West’s final run. Christopherson, a right-handed hitting third baseman, leads Golden West with 10 home runs and 47 RBIs.

Frank Herman had three hits and two RBIs, Cawhorn had two hits and two RBIs and Josh Bammer had a hit and two RBIs for Golden West (23-10-1, 13-7), which ended a three-game losing streak.

Golden West also got a seven-hit complete game from sophomore right-hander Todd Long (6-2). It was the sixth complete game for Long, who had seven strikeouts and a walk.

“Todd’s been our money guy all season,” Golden West Coach Bert Villarreal said. “When we’ve needed a big game all season he’s the guy we get the ball to. He will give it all he can the rest of the way too.”

Golden West remains two games behind first-place Rancho Santiago (29-8, 15-5), which defeated Riverside, 7-5, Tuesday. Golden West strengthened its hold on second place, moving 2 1/2 games in front of idle Fullerton (20-12, 10-9) and three games in front of Riverside (25-13, 10-10).

The top three teams from the conference automatically advance to the playoffs.

In other Orange Empire Conference games:

Orange Coast 6, Cypress 5 (10 innings)--Joe Pence hit a bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the 10th inning to score Mark Dodd with the winning run. Dodd had four hits, scored two runs and drove in two more for OCC (15-18, 8-12).

John Douris (3-4) allowed 11 hits, striking out 10, in 10 innings for the victory. Cypress scored two runs in the eighth to tie it, 4-4, then each team scored a run in the ninth to send the game into extra innings.

Terry Tewell had an RBI groundout to tie it, 4-4, but Troy Babbitt grounded out to end the ninth for Cypress (22-15, 8-11). Cypress went down in order in the 10th. Tom Puppe had four hits and scored two runs for Cypress.

Riverside 7, Rancho Santiago 5--Jay Hassell (6-1) pitched 6 1/3 innings for the victory and Scott McGorgary struck out five of the seven batters he faced, including the side in the ninth, for the save. The victory ended a two-game conference losing streak for the first-place Dons. Chris Flother had three hits and three RBIs for Rancho Santiago, which is without starting pitcher Matt Lackie (10-2) for at least a week because of illness.