After pushing the Bakersfield College Renegades to the second seat in the conference, baseball continued their streak by defeating their cross-town Los Angeles Valley College for the fifth time this season.
The Brahmas moved to first place in the Western State South conference with a 19-16 overall record, 13-5 in conference play.
Diego Harris led the game with three runs and three RBI’s followed by Michael Tillman, Bryce Vitt, Gabe Curtier and Nick Pico with two.
Alexis Miranda, outfielder attributed the team’s success in the latter half of the season to a team bonding event.
“Right before conference started we had a get together and everything changed from that point on,” Miranda said. “We were having a bad losing streak, so we had a party to get together the whole team and everyone showed up and we just talked about how we could turn this thing around.”
Miranda said the team realized how important it was to first succeed in conference before they could even continue to playoffs. Once the Brahmas were able to refocus their goals for the season, the team continued to collect wins.
Going forward, the team strategized they first must have strong games during conference then eventually focus on the playoffs as soon as they came around.
Outfielder Diego Harris said one of the ways the team improves was by being mindful of other players.
“I think we were all taking good at bats,” Harris said. “We just focus on passing the bat to the next person, getting the next person up rather than being selfish at bat like we were doing previously.”
The team has taken strides to become stronger as a unit and their season is not over yet.
Although the Brahmas’ hard work has paid off during their run at conference, the team still has to keep up that same level of intensity going into playoffs.
Now that the team is heading into playoffs, head coach Bill Picketts said that he will try to keep practices similar to their usual routine as he emphasizes a sense of urgency among the players.
“It’s something we do every practice to make sure they don’t get complacent,” Picketts said. “I make sure we keep the same practices that we’ve had since the beginning and if I don’t change the way I approach things, then hopefully they don’t either.”
With the team’s win today and success in the last half of their season, Picketts does not believe the team should be switching training strategies.
However, one thing that does need to change because of the problems it is causing the crowd is the non-operational scoreboard.
While the Brahmas were not directly affected by the scoreboard, the questions most murmured by the crowd were concerning the inning and current score. All of which could have been resolved by a working scoreboard.
During the seventh inning when the game turned around in favor of the Brahmas, the spectators were constantly seeking validation of the number of runs made from other members in the stands.
The Brahmas will play the West LA Wildcats on Thursday, April 26, at 2:30 p.m.
