Despite having a 4-19 season the West Los Angeles Community College baseball team’s players and coaches are staying positive during the 2014 season. While they compete against some of the top teams in Southern California every week, they play hard and never give up and last Saturday the Wildcats came up with a rare win when they beat Valley College 11-10.
“We pulled it out,” said coach Bo Grant after the victory Saturday. “We had a big lead early but we let them get back into the game. You have to give Valley credit for battling back. We helped them out when our pitchers hit some batters and we walked to many batters.”
WLAC will host Mission College today at 2:30 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m. Next Tuesday the Wildcats host College of the Canyons at 2:30 p.m.
West Los Angeles’ win against Valley proved that they can score runs, but now they have to continue their offensive production for the final nine games of the season.
“Today we swung the bat well,” Grant said last Saturday. “Most of the season it’s been a struggle to get timely hits with runners on base.”
Against Valley. Darrell Wilson and Zak Cooper came up with some big hits. During the season Tony Spears, Erik Gronhagen and Mateus Vakuda have proved to be the top hitters for the Wildcats.
The Wildcats dropped two games to Glendale last week, 6-1 at home on Tuesday and 10-3 at Glendale on Thursday. Glendale has played in the State Regional playoffs three of the last four years.
“West Los Angeles competed early in the game but they had a couple pitches get by their back catcher that effected the game,” said veteran Glendale Coach Chris Cicuto on Tuesday March 25. “Their bullpen pitcher (Ricardo Juarez) did a very good job of keeping our hitters off balance. He had a good curve ball.”
Every year is different and Grant understands his team needs to build a stronger foundation.
“Our players are starting to understand situations better,” said Grant. “They are growing as a group. We have a lot of freshmen and it’s been a struggle for them. These freshmen are seeing some of the best community college pitching in Southern California so it’s going to take a little time for them to adjust. There is a big difference between high school pitching and pitching at the college level.”
