City College baseball dropped the first two games of its league season in getting swept by the Allan Hancock College Bulldogs last week.
An early lead would not hold as Hancock routed CC 13-3 in the Western State Conference league opener Thursday at Pershing Park.
The Bulldogs finished the sweep with a 4-1 victory at Santa Maria on Saturday afternoon.
“We need to bounce back from this one,” said City College head coach Teddy Warrecker. “Our players need to understand that this is only one game of twenty-five.”
In the opener, the Vaqueros got off to a fast start with a two-run home run in the first inning by shortstop Chris Nealon. Kevin Pollack followed with a solo shot in the second, giving Santa Barbara a 3-0 lead.
But the Vaquero bats cooled off after the early outburst, as no more CC baserunners would cross the plate.
Starter Justin Aspegren looked good early, giving up just one hit and no runs in the first two innings of work. After that, things fell apart for Aspegren and his team.
“After the home runs, our bats went silent and our defense was very bad,” said Warrecker.
A balk by Aspegren in the third inning put runners in scoring position and set up Hancock’s first run. The young right-hander started to look rattled by the fourth. Advice from pitching coach Matt Hobbs was of no help today.
With City College up 3-1, Aspegren surrendered a game-tying two-run home run to James Bendele. On the homer, center fielder Brendan O’Donnell made a great effort, diving over the center field fence and barely missing an outstanding catch.
In the top of the sixth, the Vaquero infield botched what should have been an inning-ending double play, but instead led to the bases being loaded with no outs.
Jim Wagner then came into the game in relief for Aspegren. Aspegren gave up five runs and six hits in five innings of work and his record fell to 4-1 on the season.
Wagner gave up a two-run single to the first batter he faced. Bad defense continued to haunt City College as an error by shortstop Chris Nealon allowed another run to score and made it 6-3 after six. The Vaqueros had a season-high five errors on the day.
Mike Garcia added a three-run home run for the Bulldogs in the eighth. City College used six different pitchers and gave up a combined 12 hits.
“Our pitchers had a tough time locating their pitches all day, and bad defense really hurt us as well,” said Warrecker. “We didn’t get the strong start from Justin that we were hoping for, which made us leave it in the hands of the bullpen.”
In Saturday’s game, Hancock’s Adam Campbell outdueled Dylan Axelrod as the Vaqueros could muster just four hits, all singles, in a 4-1 loss. Jacob Roe and Bobby Ferrel homered for the Bulldogs.
These were the first in a set of five game between CC and Hancock this season. Santa Barbara (0-2, 8-3) begins a two-game set with Cuesta College this week.