Originally written for publishing on March 19, 2013.
The Fullerton College baseball team hit the road to face the Santa Ana Dons and came back with the 5-4 victory on Saturday. The win marked the fifth consecutive conference win for the Hornets.
The game started as a pitcher’s duel, with no runs being scored until the bottom of the fifth inning. Santa Ana (14-6, 3-5) broke through first after Derek Meddlings singled, and Jesus Saldana came around and scored on an error by FC third baseman Erik Lewis.
The Hornets (14-6, 6-2) broke through and tied the game in the bottom of the sixth on an RBI double by Oliver Jackson. Troy Mulcahey came in to score all the way from first base.
The Dons came back in the bottom of the inning with three runs to take a 4-1 lead. After leading off the inning with two consecutive singles, Tyler Madrid came up and hit an RBI double, and put runners at second and third.
Hornet pitcher Jeff Curran struck out the next batter looking but was not out of trouble yet. Ryan Aguilar came up and hit a two-run single to right field.
Curran, the ace off the staff, was pulled from the game after only 5.1 innings and four runs, three of which were earned. The Hornet bullpen has been shaky all year, but looked like a completely different unit after Curran was pulled.
Jacob Miller came in and pitched 2.1 innings, and struck out three batters to pick up the win, and improve to 3-0.
After Miller got the Hornets out of the jam, they were facing a three run deficit heading into the seventh.
FC loaded the bases with one out in the top of the seventh, and the Dons were forced to take out starter Richard Diaz, and go to the bullpen. Steven Perkins came in and could not minimize the damage. The Hornets scored four runs, although only one was credited to Perkins, saddling him with the loss.
With the bases loaded, Lewis hit a sacrifice fly that scored Uriel Salinas and moved Ryan Joyce to third. Troy Mulcahey followed Lewis with a two-run double into the right-center field gap to tie that game. Jose Rojas then followed with the game-winning RBI single.
Miller was pulled after 2.1 innings and Sean Michel came in for 1.1 innings and the save.
