Originally written for publishing on March 5, 2013.
The Fullerton College Hornets picked up their first conference win of the season Saturday with an 11-2 rout of the Riverside College Tigers at Fullerton College.
The win comes after dropping a game to the state powerhouse Santa Ana Dons.
The Hornets (9-5, 1-1) got another strong outing out of their ace, Jeff Curran. It was Curran’s fifth start of the season, and his record now stands at 5-0.
The game may have been Curran’s best outing of the season, as he went the complete game while only giving up two runs, one of which was unearned. He also struck out seven and only gave up seven hits.
Coach Fuscardo has been calling for his team’s offense to wake up, and he got his wish on Saturday. The Hornets put up 11 runs in the game, including eight in the first four innings.
After a first inning that saw the Hornets get nothing going, FC woke up in the second inning. Jose Rojas led off the inning with a single to right field. The next better was Oliver Jackson, who cranked a home run to give the team a 2-0 lead.
The home run was only the second of the season for the Hornets, both coming from Jackson. Three batters later, Derreck Garcia tripled in another run to make the lead 3-0.
In between, Garrett Donohoe, who has been trying to play through a shoulder injury grounded out, and coach Fuscardo saw something he did not like and pulled him out of the game. It was the second consecutive game that Donohoe attempted to play but was not able to finish the game.
The Hornets added another run in the bottom of the third inning on an RBI triple by Jackson. Jackson was the offensive star of the game, going 3-4 with three runs batted in and a run.
The fourth inning was the Hornets’ most productive inning. Fullerton put up four runs on five hits in that inning alone.
The first three batters all reached base to load the bases for designated hitter Troy Mulcahey, who dropped in a two RBI single for one of his two hits in the game.
The next batter, Jose Rojas, hit an RBI single and Mulcahey advanced to second. Two batters later, Garrett Valdez knocked in Mulcahey with a single.
The Tigers would score one run in each of the the fifth and sixth innings to cut the lead to 8-2. The run in the fifth came on a ground out, and a throwing error led to the run in the sixth.
The Hornets would add three more in the seventh, including a two RBI single by Erik Lewis.
The Hornet defense has been problematic all season, but it did not seem to be too big of a problem on Saturday. They did have one error that led to a run, but they were able to minimize the damage, largely due to the pitching by Curran.
The Hornets will look to continue to work their way up the standings Tuesday at 2 p.m. at Irvine Valley College.