The Santa Barbara City College baseball team finished five games in a five-day stretch beating the Mt. San Jacinto Eagles 5-4 Saturday at a sun-drenched Pershing Park.

Bryce Uhrig turned in yet another stellar performance on the hill for the Vaqueros, raising his record 5-1. The sophomore right-hander went seven innings while striking out seven and not allowing a single earned run.

“They weren’t swinging first pitch, so I was just throwing fastballs first pitch,” Uhrig, last season’s WSC Pitcher of the Year said. “I was just trying to mix up their timing and get their timing off.”

The Eagles’ lack of aggressiveness allowed Uhrig to utilize his arsenal of off-speed pitches to keep hitters off-balance. Even the added pressure of a much-needed victory didn’t faze the staff ace.

“The way the week went, we just needed a win,” head coach Teddy Warrecker said. “You don’t want to take for granted that that’s what he does every time out. He’s always good for seven or eight innings and one or two runs. He’s tremendous.”

The Vaqueros finished their five-games-in-five-day run by going 2-3 making their record 15-10 overall with 18 games left to play. They currently hold third place among the WSC North’s six teams.

Right fielder Corey Krupp had an outstanding day at the dish going 4-4 and sparking the top the Santa Barbara’s lineup.

Warrecker has been extremely pleased with Krupp’s progression as the year has gone along.

“It’s a great junior college story. He puts in the hard work and has the foundation. Now it’s really starting go,” Warrecker said of the red-shirt freshman. “He’s gotten confident and with that confidence comes great results. It’s good to see.”

“When I’m in there, I like to sit on a pitch. So I was just waiting for fastballs and I got them,” Krupp said. “In the beginning of the season, I didn’t really know what I could do. I just needed a few games to get confident. Once you get confident you get relaxed, and I’m just real relaxed at the plate right now.”

The Vaqueros got on the board in the first inning, when Krupp scored after singling on Aaron Bauman’s RBI single. They would add two more runs in the frame on a balk and sacrifice fly from catcher Jake Tipton making the score 3-1.

Later, Krupp would push the lead to 5-1 in the seventh inning on his fourth hit. But Santa Barbara would run into trouble in the eighth when the Eagles would score two runs thanks to some sloppy Vaquero defense.

“Defensively, we’re not doing a very good job,” Warrecker said. “Given extra opportunities most teams will score. If we just play catch in that inning, then it’s not really an issue.”

Mt. San Jacinto would add another run in the ninth to make it 5-4. With the tying run on third and two outs, it would be the Santa Barbara defense that would ironically save the game. First baseman Keahi Piiohia took a hard ground ball off the leg, but luckily it deflected right to the Vaquero second basemen who made an off-balance play to get the games final out.

“It was an incredibly athletic play,” Warrecker said. “It saved the game for us.”