Peter Samore
VALLEY GLEN -- Heading into the last week of the regular season,
everything seems to be going Glendale Community College's way.
Simply put, the Vaquero baseball team is healthy, their pitchers are
strong and their batters keep hitting home runs.
This trend continued Saturday against L.A. Valley College, as three
GCC batters homered and three pitchers bore down on the Monarchs en route
to a 12-3 Western State Conference Southern Division victory.
The road win boosted GCC's April record to 11-1. More importantly, the
Vaqueros (28-11, 17-6 in conference) stayed atop the division standings.
Second-place Citrus College (29-7, 16-7) beat L.A. Pierce, 2-1, Saturday
to stay one game out of first.
Once fighting for the division title at the start of the week, College
of the Canyons is now battling for its playoff life. After two losses to
GCC, Canyons (18-22, 14-9) fell to Bakersfield on Saturday, 7-2, to slip
three games out of first.
Now all the Vaqueros have left is another matchup with L.A. Valley at
2:30 p.m. Tuesday at Stengel Field and a home-and-home with Citrus on
Thursday and Saturday, culminating with their regular-season finale
against the Owls at 1 p.m. Saturday at Stengel Field.
And GCC Coach Jon Strauss said his team has one more thing that it
didn't have the last time it faced Citrus: intensity.
"It's all about intensity," Strauss said. "We had enough of that today
and we did a lot of things right. We'll still be playing with that next
week."
The Vaqueros sorely lacked that toward the end of March, when Citrus
beat them twice. Nevertheless, Strauss still wants the Owls to be
competitive.
"I hope they win all of their games before they see us," he said.
"I want us to beat them."
Also making its way back into the GCC lineup is power, namely Fernando
Valenzuela Jr.'s. The first baseman hit his 11th home run of the year and
fourth of the week, giving team leader Evan Shahak some competition.
However, Shahak kept the team lead with his 12th of the season, a
two-run shot into left field. Working as a designated hitter, the
sophomore went four for five with a single, two doubles, two runs and
three runs batted in.
L.A. Valley (3-35, 2-21) -- the second-worst team in Southern
California -- scattered three runs and seven hits against GCC pitching.
BOX SCORE
GCC*0*1*6*3*0*0*1*0*1*--*12*11*1
L.A. Valley*1*0*1*0*0*0*0*0*1*--*3*7*3
GCC*IP*R*ER*H*BB*K
Camacho*6*2*1*3*4*6
Marble*2*0*0*1*0*3
Gipson*1*1*1*3*1*1
Totals*9*3*2*7*5*10
L.A. Valley*IP*R*ER*H*BB*K
Walker*2*2*2*2*0*1
Rycroft*0.1*5*4*3*1*0
Guresky*1.2*3*0*2*2*1
Avila*3*1*1*2*3*0
Marin*2*1*1*2*1*4
Totals*9*0*0*3*1*9
WP-Camacho (7-3).
LP-Walker (1-5).
2B: GCC-Shahak 2; LAV-Sandoval.
3B: GCC-Ramirez.
HR: GCC-Valenzuela (11), Keeran (5), Shahak (12).
SB: GCC-Bowman, Samaniego; LAV-Chevrier, Lopez.
