The Pierce College baseball team lost in a come from behind victory to Santa Barbara City College 7-6 at Pershing Park on Thursday, April 25.
The two teams were engaged in an intense pitching duel between Bobby Schauer, of Pierce, and Brendon Shoemake, of Santa Barbara.
Both pitchers were able to last until the ninth inning trying to keep each other’s offense at bay, while delivering solid outings for their teams.
Schauer only gave up five runs off nine hits and allowing three walks, while Shoemake gave up 6 runs on seven hits and tallied four strikeouts as well.
For Santa Barbra City College, the offense did its part early in the game scoring three runs in the first four innings boasting confidence to Shoemake who was keeping Pierce scoreless with help from his defense.
In the later innings Pierce was able to capitalize on a tiring arm, and rallied to take a two run lead scoring five runs in the seventh inning.
Pierce was able to increase their lead to three over Santa Barbara in the ninth inning behind the bat of outfielder Joe Christian who went 2-4 on the day with three runs batted in and was able to steal one base.
Much like Pierce was able to take advantage of an exhausted arm, Santa Barbra made one last home stand in the ninth.
Santa Barbra City College was led offensively by catcher Jared Dinges and center fielder Andy Smith who both went 3-4 and combined for four RBI’s.
Santa Barbra was able to string together some hits to get some momentum going their way before Head Coach John Bushart was forced to go to his bullpen.
Relief pitcher Julian Achez was called on to close the game out, but gave up three runs to tie the game at 6-6.
Pierce made a second pitching change of the inning, and brought third baseman Kevin Torres to the mound who ended up hitting the first batter he faced to load the bases quickly made a bad situation worse.
With only one out, Pierce needed an infield ground ball to stay alive, but the unthinkable happened; Torres hit a second batter in a row handing the game over to Santa Barbara.
Pierce and Santa Barbara will face off again tomorrow at Kelly Field at 2:30 p.m. where Pierce will look to end their regular season on a good note.