The Long Beach City College baseball team extended their winning streak to five games Thursday evening at Joe Hicks Memorial Field after cruising past the Chaffey College Panthers, 8-3, in conference play. The Vikings used a well-rounded attack that featured eight runs off 12 hits and another masterful pitching performance from freshman starter Josh Agnew (Long Beach, CA).
Agnew earned his seventh win of the season after tossing eight shutout innings and scattering just six hits. While incorporating the perfect balance of location and off speed pitches, he utilized a flawless defense after earning just a pair of punch outs.
"As a team, we feel like we have finally figured it out," said Agnew, who pushed his ERA to a lowly 2.01 on the season. "I felt great today, but as a team we always have to touch up on a couple things."
In his last six starts, Agnew has pitched 6.2 innings or more while allowing just five earned runs and fanning 21 batters.
It helps Agnew when the offense is rolling at the dish, as the Vikings have scored a total of 20 runs the past two games.
Eight of the nine starters recorded at least one hit in the game, with sophomore shortstop Antonio Monroy (Maywood, CA) pacing the team on a 3-for-4 day with a double, RBI, and three runs scored. Monroy is third in the South Coast Conference (SCC) – South in runs scored with a total of 30 and fourth overall in hits with 40.
Sophomore shortstop Vincent Byrd II (Sacramento, CA) padded his homerun total by launching his sixth of the season in the bottom of the first inning to hand the Vikings the early 3-0 advantage. Byrd II sits atop the SCC-South in homeruns with the next-closest player being two round trippers behind.
After grabbing the early 3-0 lead, sophomore shortstop Reese Berberet (Fallbrook, CA) put together a nice at-bat and recorded a sacrifice fly to center field, scoring freshman catcher Jacob Gotta (San Diego, CA).
Agnew continued to blank the Panthers on the scoring front the following three frames to prove his dominance. The pitching turned into quality offense, as three consecutive RBI-singles from sophomore designated hitter Jared Mayeda (Cypress, CA), freshman left fielder Collin Perez (Long Beach, CA), and freshman center fielder Ian Konek (Long Beach, CA) handed the Vikings a comfortable seven run lead thus leading to an 8-3 victory.
Monroy, who pushed his batting average up to .392 on the season, extended his hitting streak to 10 games. Six of those contests have been multi-hit games. Freshman second baseman Tyler Wilber (Los Alamitos, CA) and Perez notched two hits as well.
The Vikings (18-11-1, 11-5 SCC) will look to break out the brooms for a series sweep against Chaffey on Tuesday, April 11th at 2:30 p.m. on the road.