Saddleback Defeats Cypress in Baseball

Chris Ridenour scored on Pat Wood’s two-out single in the eighth inning to give host Saddleback a 3-2 victory over Cypress in an Orange Empire Conference baseball game Thursday.

The victory moves Saddleback (26-11, 11-7) and Riverside (23-11-1, 11-7), which beat Orange Coast, 10-6, Thursday, into a three-way tie for first place with Cypress (24-12-1, 11-7) with six games left.

Wood also had a home run in the sixth to put Saddleback ahead, 2-1.

Cypress, which was 6-0 in the first round of conference, has lost five of its last six including 2-1 to Saddleback on Tuesday.

In other conference games:

Santa Ana 17, Fullerton 2--Richard Lane hit two home runs, giving him a conference-leading 13 this season for the host Dons, who had 19 hits. Lane finished with five RBIs and Joe Urban had three hits, including two doubles, and scored two runs for Santa Ana (24-13, 10-8), which is tied for second with Orange Coast, one game out of first.

Fullerton is 18-20, 5-13.

In the South Coast Conference women’s swimming championships:

Rustlers set record--Golden West set a conference record in the 400 medley relay by winning in 4 minutes 9.60 seconds. The previous record, 4:10.86, was set by Orange Coast in 1984. Golden West’s Kristen Rich won the 50 freestyle in 24.56 to also set a conference record.

In the South Coast Conference men’s swimming championships:

Golden West wins relays--The Rustlers won the 200 freestyle relay in 1:25.84 and the 400 relay in 3:31.61. Peter Driscoll won the 50 freestyle in 21.63 for the Rustlers.