COMMUNITY COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Rancho Santiago Opens Baseball Playoffs With 8-4 Victory

Rancho Santiago, the defending State champion, opened the Southern California baseball playoffs in Sylmar on Saturday with an 8-4 victory over Los Angeles Mission.

Rancho Santiago is seeded 10th and Los Angeles Mission is seeded seventh.

The Dons (34-11) were leading, 3-1, after six innings but scored two in the seventh and three in the eighth.

Keith Cowley hit a home run, his third, in the eighth inning. Daryle Ward hit his eighth home run with a runner on in the eighth for Rancho Santiago.

Joe Fraser had three hits and Matt Kastelic had two hits, including a double, and drove in two runs.

Brian Martineau (4-3) pitched 7 2/3 innings for the victory. The teams play at 11 a.m. today at L.A. Mission.

In other playoff games:

Cypress 14, East Los Angeles 4--Augie Ojeda, Jason Hodges, Josh Kliner, Mark Selway and Peter Lythgoe each had two RBIs for host Cypress (35-10). Hodges hit his 12th homer, Andy Gonzales his sixth and Selway his third for Cypress, which plays host to East L.A. (22-19) at 11 a.m. today.

Cuesta 7, Saddleback 0--Harvey Gambog pitched a six-hitter for host Cuesta (33-11). Gambog (9-2) walked two and struck out one. Wes Brasher had two hits for Saddleback (23-15).

Jeff Biron (5-3) gave up eight hits and six runs, all earned.

At the State community college tennis championships:

Berg-Casas defeated--Nate Turney and John McCall of Foothill College defeated Saddleback’s Eric Berg and Billy Casas, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, in the quarterfinals of men’s doubles.