Long Beach City College turned a close game into a blowout as the Vikings rolled to their sixth straight win, a 12-2 victory at El Camino College on Friday, to close out the regular season and earn them a share of the 2014 South Coast Conference championship.
Head coach Casey Crook and the Vikings will split the title three ways with Cerritos College and East Los Angeles College, who also posted wins in their final game today to force the tri-championship.
For Crook, it is his fourth SCC title (1996, 2006, 2009) and first since 2009. He also takes LBCC the the postseason for the seventh time after reaching the playoffs in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2006, 2008, and 2009.
On Thursday, Long Beach led early after a run-scoring groundout by sophomore Yamel Delgado in the fourth and a RBI double by sophomore Nolan Flashman in the fifth.
El Camino finally came alive in the sixth to score two runs off LBCC sophomore starting pitcher Sean Hale to tie the game at 2-2.
But just like in Thursday's come-from-behind win, the Vikings rallied late to score 10 runs over the final three innings.
Sophomore Daniel Pitts broke the game open with his bases-loaded triple in the seventh and promptly came in to score on a balk for LBCC's fourth run of the inning.
Thursday's walk-off hero, Stefan Mildinovich, hit a sacrifice fly to score Delgado and sophomore Ryan Dickison doubled to drive in freshmen Michael Thomas and Jake Reinhardt to give LBCC a 9-2 lead.
Long Beach closed out the game with three more runs in the top of the ninth before sophomore Cameron Mackenzie sealed the win with a perfect bottom of the ninth to set off the Vikings' celebration.
Freshman Julian Griego picked up the win in relief, tossing three scoreless inning to improve to 5-0 on the season. Delgado went 4 for 5 to lead LBCC at the plate while Pitts drove in three runs and Dickison and Miladinovich both had 2 RBI.
Pairings for the upcoming Southern California Regional Playoffs will be announced on Sunday. According to Crook, Long Beach will likely be on the road for a best-of-three series that begins on Friday, May 2.