JetHawks Get Good Start and Finish Quakes, 7-6

Rob Luce to the rescue. Again.

After Lancaster JetHawk pitchers gave up 25 runs in the previous two games, Luce took the ball on Friday and had another strong performance, leading the JetHawks to a 7-6 victory over the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes before 3,659 at the Hangar.

Luce, a slender right-hander who throws deceptively hard, gave up two earned runs and five hits in six innings.

It was his fifth solid outing in five starts. Luce (4-0) has been so good that this game actually raised his earned-run average to 2.48.

“I didn’t think he had his best stuff but he battled real hard,” said pitching coach Jim Slaton. “He was over-throwing at the start but it was a real solid effort. He kept us in the game.”

Luce, a 22-year-old picked in the ninth round of last June’s draft out of Nevada Las Vegas, breezed through three of his six innings with 10 or fewer pitches, but did his Houdini impression in the second. After loading the bases with none out, Luce struck out the side.

Luce was clinging to a 4-3 lead in the fifth when the JetHawks (10-12) scored three runs.

James Clifford hit a run-scoring double, Miguel Correa had a run-scoring single and Carlos Villalobos added a run-scoring single.

The JetHawks nearly blew the lead in the ninth. Sean Spencer, after pitching two scoreless innings, gave up three runs but struck out Mike Mitchell with the tying run at second to end the game.