Citrus College's Baseball Breaks Through West L.A. with 7-5 Win

The Citrus College baseball team defeated West Los Angeles 7-5 on Tuesday afternoon by taking advantage of two solo homeruns belted by freshman second baseman Shane Fraijo and benefited from another solid pitching start by Mikey Ramirez.

The Owls (13-14, 8-6) beat the visiting Wildcats for the second time this season and with the win, kept pace with Canyons and L.A. Mission in the WSC South.

Ramirez made his third straight start count with eight innings pitched where he struck out six while Fraijo went 4 for 4 with 4 runs and 3 RBI’s.

Citrus Coach Steve Gomez said his team could not afford to underestimate the last place Wildcats, even after beating them earlier in the year 19-2, especially after observing West L.A.’s hot bats during batting practice before the game.

“I thought this team was swinging the bats really well,” said Gomez, “They scared me a bit, this is a team that’s in last place but they’re a good team. You can’t take anybody lightly, particularly in this conference.

“What’s occurred in our conference over the last several years is that we seem to beat each other up quite a bit, any team that is in last place at a given time can move up to first and we saw that early on with Canyons (going 1-5) and they’re all the way moving up,” said Gomez.

The Owls managed to score their seven runs on 12 hits and drew first blood in the bottom of the first inning with the first of Fraijo’s solo homeruns, The Wildcats evened it up in their half of the second inning with a run scoring single by Vinicius DeMelo, and then added another run when Robert Berryman hit a shot to center for his only run batted in of the game for a 2-1 lead.

After the Owls tied it with another solo home run, this time authored by catcher Nicholas Bergara, they found themselves in a pitcher’s duel deadlocked at 4-4 at the close of the third inning.

Bergara was coming off a good game Saturday when he went 2 for 3 with 3 RBI’s against L.A. Mission.

Gomez said Ramirez is normally the team’s middle relief pitcher, but he was forced to start because of injuries to the Owls’ starting pitchers, compelling them to rely more on their bullpen.

The fourth inning was equally productive for Citrus as they managed to get to the Wildcat’s freshman pitcher Jonathan Skura with RBI’s by Fraijo and third baseman Gregory Salcido to take a 6-4 lead. The Wildcats opened the eight with a solo homerun but Citrus answered with Fraijo’s second solo homer of the day, a two-out blast that gave the Owls the lead for good 7-5.

Freshman pitcher Oscar Gomez got the save with one with one half inning of work and a strike out to record the final out of the game.

“Hopefully that’s a confidence builder for him because we’re going to need him,” said Gomez adding, “He did an excellent job.”

“Our starter had a really good game, our defense was good,” said Fraijo. “I just try to do whatever I need to do to help our team win. Every time we’d get on them they’d come right back but we fought through it. We gotta keep playing like we’re playing and make a run of it.”

 The Owls next go on the road on Thursday for another clash with the Wildcats and then return home on Sat. April 9 to open a two game stand against Bakersfield.

BOXSCORE                    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9      R  H   E

 West LA College………….0 2 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 -    5  14   1

Citrus College……………..1 1 2 2 0 0 0 1 X-     7  12   0