Ethan Watson hit a pinch-hit walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the SBCC baseball to a series-clinching 5-4 win over Golden West on Saturday that advanced the Vaqueros to the next round of the Southern California Community College Baseball Regionals.
The ninth-seeded Vaquero forced a deciding game by beating the No. 16 Rustlers, 11-5, earlier Saturday at Pershing Park to even their best-of-three regional series.
SBCC advances to a three-team Super Regional. The Vaqueros open against Cypress on Thursday, with the winner taking on host Santa Ana.
Watson drove in Zach Torres for the winning run. Torres opened the inning with a single, moved to second on a groundout by Daniel Ghiroso and advanced to third on a single by Daniel Hirose. Hirose stole second and Watson followed with his game-winning single.
Golden West scored three runs in the second inning to take a 3-1 lead in the deciding game. SBCC tied the score in the third on a RBI single by Patrick Walsh and a groundout by Carson Cahoy.
The Vaqueros took a 4-3 lead in the sixth on a RBI single by Tyler Imbach.
Golden West tied the score at 4-4 in the seventh on a hit batter with the bases loaded.
Decker MacNeil, the fourth SBCC pitcher picked up the win. He went three innings, allowing one run, two hits and one walk while striking out two.
Jordan Rico, a former Dos Pueblos standout, provided 3.2 innings of strong relief after starter Jack Holland (Santa Barbara High alum) was lifted.
With SBCC behind 3-1, Rico came in with runners on second and third and induced a pop-up and then struck the next batter out to end the inning.
In Saturday’s first game, SBCC broke open a 5-4 game with six runs in the sixth
Fung hit a run-scoring single, Arguelles and Walsh walked with the bases loaded for RBIs and two runs scored on an infield error on Cahoy’s hit to third. Walsh scored on a wild pitch to make it an 11-4 lead.
Jake Villar pitched 6.1 innings in relief of Coleton Dahl and earned the win.