Glendale Community College baseball falls in 13-inning game one

GLENDALE — Opposite-field home runs to right field don’t seem to occur very often at spacious Stengel Field.

Glendale Community College baseball Coach Chris Cicuto recalled seeing one way back in 2001. Unfortunately for Cicuto, he saw another one on Friday at the worst of times.

Austin O’Banion hit a lead-off home run to deep right in the top of the 13th inning to lift 17th-seeded Fullerton to a 4-3 victory against second-seeded Glendale in the first game of the California Community College Athletic Assn. Southern California Regionals at damp Stengel Field.

O’Banion hit a 1-0 pitch from reliever Marco Quintanar for his second home run of the game, which lasted nearly four hours and featured a rain delay that spanned nearly two hours.

“It’s something that’s hard to do,” Cicuto said. “He hit the home run and it was a great game. Our offense wasn’t very good and we tried to do too much.

“We held them to four runs in 13 innings. Tip your cap to Fullerton. Now, we have to bounce back and win two on Saturday.”

Glendale (28-9) and Fullerton (17-21) will meet at 11 a.m. in the second game of the best-of-three series. Should Glendale win, a winner-take-all game would be held 30 minutes following the conclusion of the earlier contest.

Glendale, which won the Western State Conference South Division championship for the second straight season, had an opportunity to tie it in its half of the 13th. However, Fullerton reliever Dylan DeChavez got Kamula Neal to ground out to second with a runner on second to end the game.

Glendale trailed, 3-1, before scoring one run in the eighth and one in the ninth. Neal tied it in the ninth with a two-out single to left.

“These are two great teams going at it,” Neal said. “Both teams came out ready to play and they got us in the end. We shake it off and try to bounce back.

“We just need to do a better job in taking advantage of our opportunities.”

Glendale took a 1-0 lead in the fourth on a sacrifice fly to center by Liam Shibata. that scored Jared Akins.

Glendale starting pitcher Ryan Losman went the first six innings, striking out five and yielding three hits as he shut out a vaunted Hornets offense that came into Friday averaging better than eight runs per game.

Losman was relieved by Calvin Christiansen to start the seventh. Christiansen got into immediate trouble, giving up a single and walk before Josh Balbuena doubled to tie it at 1.

Heavy rain then began to fall, forcing the game and the Hornets’ rally to be delayed.

When play resumed, Fullerton took a 2-1 lead on a sacrifice fly to right by Kevin Foley.

O’Banion hit a solo home run to left in the eighth to extend the lead to 3-1.

The Vaqueros, who are 15-3 in their last 18 games, sliced the deficit to 3-2 in the eighth when Frank Garriola walked with the bases loaded and two outs. Akins followed with a sharp line out to short to end the threat.

Glendale tied it in the ninth. With runners on first and second with two outs, Neal grounded a single to left off reliever Austin Case that scored Chris Colarossi.

“I looked for something good to hit and I got a fastball that I could handle,” Neal said.

The Vaqueros finished with nine hits, including two apiece from Akins and Cristian Montes. Akins, Montes and Ricky Perez scored one run each for the Vaqueros.

Fullerton had 10 hits. Joey Parente, O’Banion, Shane Carrier and Balbuena had two hits apiece for the Hornets, who entered the game as the fourth-place finisher from the Orange Empire Conference.

However, Fullerton’s fourth-place finish came after having to forfeit 12 games due to an ineligible player. Prior to that, Fullerton had been ranked in the top four in Southern California for much of the season.

Hence, Glendale knew it had an excellent opponent in front of it despite the 17th seeding. Having won five of the last six WSC South Division titles, the Vaqueros advanced past the first round in each of their previous four postseason appearances. Now they’ll have to win two on Saturday to continue that streak.