Baseball falters versus Santa Ana

Mark Gillman/Roundup

Notorious Southern California baseball power, the Santa Ana Dons came to Joe Kelly field Thursday handled the Pierce College Brahmas, 14-5.

Starting the 2010 baseball season with three consecutive wins, optimism was high for the Brahmas. Nick Rodarte had the formidable task at hand of trying to shut down one of the top junior college offenses in the state.    

Each team had lots of scoring chances early on and seemed to always have an answer for one another.

After the Dons manufactured a first inning score, Pierce responded immediately.

Scratching across a run of their own on the heels of a throwing error allowing David Whetstone to score from second base.

The Brahmas struck for two more runs in the bottom half of the second inning when Justin Fredlander drew a leadoff walk and Zack Gilula doubled off of the right center field fence against Santa Ana left hander Christian Meza.

Meza, headed to Cal State Fullerton this fall, then surrendered a base hit to third baseman Matt Moreno, scoring Gilula and giving Pierce a 3-1 lead.

Santa Ana didn’t stay quiet for long.

The Dons answered with a leadoff single opened up the third inning, putting Rodarte in the stretch.

Cal Poly bound first baseman Chris Miller then hit a 2-1 fastball over the left field fence to tie the game up at three.

“I got a pitch I could handle and just did my best to put a good swing on it,” Miller said.

The two ball clubs were tied in the eighth inning after each starting pitcher had been pulled, keeping their respective teams in the game.

Santa Ana got brought everything together with four consecutive hits. Their well disciplined batting approach spear headed the charge en route to a big six run inning and an almost insurmountable 11-5 lead.

They would later tack on three more runs in the ninth as Pierce failed to respond, falling 14-5.

“It was a good game through seven,” Pierce head coach John Bushart said after the game. “Santa Ana had 11 hits in the last two innings, you’re going to put up some runs when you do that.”

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