Long Beach City College sophomore Sean Williams (Wilson HS) delivered his second straight walk-off hit at home as the Vikings rallied late for a 5-4 win over Los Angeles Harbor College at home on Thursday. The win was the Vikings' third straight and improved them to 21-11 overall. LBCC is currently tied for first in the South Coast Conference standings at 13-4 with just four games left to play.
Harbor (11-21, 7-10 SCC) jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the top of the fourth inning before the Vikings slowly chipped away.
Freshman Vincent Byrd II (Sacramento, CA/El Camino HS) launched a laser over the right-field fence for a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the fourth for Long Beach. And in the eighth, the Vikings rallied to tie the game up at 4-4. Freshman Gavin Windes (St. Jon Bosco HS) and Byrd both his back-to-back singles to lead off the frame. Sophomore Jackson Foss (Wilson HS) sacrificed the two over before sophomore Stevie Castro (Wilson HS) lined a two-single past a diving Harbor shortstop to drive in Windes. Pinch hitter Ernie Sierra (Millikan HS) followed with a RBI single to right field to bring home pinch runner Aaron Hinds (Cerritos HS) for the tying run.
In the ninth, freshman Tony Monroy (Warren HS) smacked a leadoff triple to get the final rally started. Harbor elected to intentionally walk sophomore Tai Tiedemann (Poly HS) and Windes to load the bases. Williams, who won Saturday's game with a walk-off sacrifice fly in the 10th inning, lined a single to center to score Monroy with the game-winning run.
Freshman Steven Nuno (Warren HS) went four innings and allowed four runs and eight hits in the start for the Vikings. Freshman Jacob Zinger (Poly HS) pitched well in relief with three innings of one-hit ball. And sophomore Evan May (Oxford Academy) picked up the win to improve to 5-2 as he tossed the final two innings while allowing just two hits.
Long Beach and Harbor close out the three-game SCC series on Saturday (Apr. 23) at noon in Wilmington.