Sophomore starting pitcher Steven Gallardo (Hamilton HS, pictured) struck out 11 and the Long Beach City College baseball team pounded out 12 hits in a 10-0 win over Cerritos College in both teams' South Coast Conference opener on Tuesday at Joe Hicks Memorial Field.

The win improved Long Beach to 6-7 overall and 1-0 in the SCC while Cerritos dropped to 3-10 and 0-1 in conference play. The two teams continue their three-game conference series on Thursday (Mar 8) when they play at Cerritos at 2 pm.

Gallardo was impressive in the complete-game win on Tuesday as he scattered eight hits and walked none to improve to 3-1 overall this season.

Gallardo got out of trouble early as Cerritos had runners on first and third with one out after singles by Andres Dorantes and Joshua Ancona in the top of the first. But Gallardo settled down and struck out Daniel Renteria and Bubby Rossman to end the threat.

The Vikings handed Gallardo a two-run lead with runs in the bottom of the second. Freshmen Jaime Valle (Paramount HS) and Devan Schermerhorn (Mayfair HS) both came up with clutch two-out RBI singles to put Long Beach up 2-0.

With the lead, Gallardo went on cruise control. He continued to pound the strike zone to get ahead on Cerritos batters and totaled six strikeouts over the first four innings.

Long Beach blew the game open with in the fourth. The Vikings sent 13 batters to the plate, totaled seven hits, and took advantage of three Cerritos errors to score eight runs.

Freshmen Avery Flores (Millikan HS) drove in a pair of runs with two hits in the inning, Chris Miranda (Bellflower HS) had a RBI single, while Nate Alcafaras (Wilson HS) and Valle both hit two-run singles to keep the rally going.

Gallardo went on to retire 12 of the next 13 batters he faced until allowing a pair of singles in the top of the eighth. He got Renteria to foul out to get out of that jam and struck out two in the ninth to close out the win.

Jacob Bell picked up the loss for the Falcons to fall to 1-5 overall. He allowed six runs (four earned) over 3 2/3 innings and struck out two. Jon Villapando was impressive in relief, pitching a scoreless 4 1/3 innings to close out the game.

Photo/video by Chris Ruiz