Baseball: Miscues plague Vikings in 4-2 loss to West LA

The Long Beach City College baseball team is still in search of its first win after falling 4-2 to visiting West Los Angeles College on Thursday at Joe Hicks Memorial Field.

Another LBCC starting pitcher took a tough-luck loss as the Vikings committed four errors on the field and were thrown out twice trying to score at home.

Freshman Schuyler Hill (Wilson HS) pitched well in his Viking debut, allowing just two hits while striking out six batters over six innings. He gave up a pair of unearned runs in the fourth after a two-out LBCC error and was tagged with the loss (0-1).

West LA (2-3) jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the eighth thanks to a RBI single by Greg West and a sacrifice fly by Greg Dixon off LBCC relief pitcher Zach Mahon (El Dorado Hills, CA).

The Vikings finally got to West LA starter Jeffrey Davis in the bottom of the eighth. Davis issued walks to sophomore Robert Castaneda (Poly HS) and freshman Nick Guerra (Gahr HS) to open the inning. He then hit Tanner Moore (Irvine HS) with a pitch to load the bases. Tai Tiedemann (Poly HS) smacked the first pitch he saw for a single to centerfield that scored Castaneda. Sophomore Tanner Levine (Millikan HS) followed with a sac fly to bring in Guerra, but that would be all for the Vikings. Davis settled down to retire the next two batters he faced to strand the tying run on base.

Davis (1-1) set the Vikings down in order in the ninth for the complete-game victory. He allowed six hits, two runs, and struck out three.

Freshman Anthony Timmons (Lakewood HS) tossed 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief for LBCC.

Long Beach (0-3) returns to action on Saturday (Feb.7) when it travels to Oxnard College for a doubleheader that begins at 12 p.m.