The Pierce College baseball team recorded its third consecutive loss at home against the Ventura County Pirates.
The 8-5 loss brought the Brahmas to a season record of five wins and 10 losses.
Inconsistent calls by the game’s umpire were partially to blame in the Brahmas, according to Kevin Slattery, father of injured Brahmas pitcher Christian Slattery.
Slattery disagreed with a call that ended a possible late-inning comeback as the Brahmas were up at bat with bases loaded.
“The third-strike call looked like it was a little high to me but the umpire was up and down today,” said Slattery. “It’s an emotional game, they are out there battling every day and that’s all you can ask from your team. High strikes, low strikes, it’s just a part of the game.”
Scheduled to face the Pirates for the second time in Ventura on Tuesday, March 8, Brahma’s head coach, Bill Picketts, plans to rehearse lessons learned from today’s game in preparation for the matchup.
“We’re going to come back on Monday to practice and work on the things we need to get better at,” Picketts said. “We’re going to put the ball in play a little bit more, put the ball on the ground a little bit more and get our pitchers to throw more strikes. If we do all of those things we’re going to be fine. We’ll have success.”
Picketts recognized problems on the field and stressed it is a necessity to enhance team performance.
“Right now we’re not really doing anything great. We’re not doing anything super terrible but we just need to get better.” Picketts said.
A home-run sent deep into left field by Jordan Abushahla boosted team morale early in the third inning, according to outfielder Jerry Ismerio.
“It was a great hit,” said Ismerio. “He saw the ball down like we talked about before the game. He did exactly what we were supposed to do, see the ball down and put a good swing on a good pitch, he did just that. It was a great feeling, it definitely raised our team morale.”
Unable to maintain the momentum following Abushahla’s home run, the Brahmas finally succumbed to the competitive pressures applied by the Pirates.