Baseball: Vikings fall 11-2 to Cerritos, Crook gets next shot at 500 on Saturday

Long Beach City College head coach Casey Crook will have to wait until Saturday for his next chance at career win No. 500 after an 11-2 loss to visiting Cerritos College on Thursday at LBCC's Joe Hicks Memorial Field.

With the loss, Long Beach dropped to 10-9 overall and 6-2 in South Coast Conference play while Cerritos (12-8 overall) moves into a first-place tie in the SCC standings at 6-2.

Cerritos pounded out 14 hits and opened up a close 3-1 game with five runs in the sixth inning to put the contest out of reach for the Vikings.

Third baseman Victor Guadalupe had a big game for Cerritos, going 3 for 5 with 5 RBI. He smacked a pair of home runs and also turned in the defensive play of the game.

Down 3-1, Long Beach loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth inning. The Vikings' Justin Davis (Mayfair HS) smashed a hard grounder to Guadalupe. He stepped on the bag at third for the first out, tagged freshman Tai Tiedemann (Poly HS) as he tried returning to third for the second out, and threw to first base to retire Davis to end the LBCC threat and keep the momentum on the Falcons' side.

Long Beach scored an unearned run in the second thanks to a Cerritos error and got a RBI single from freshman Jackson Foss (Wilson HS) in the sixth to close out the Vikings' scoring.

Sophomore Tanner Levine (Millikan HS) took the loss for LBCC to fall to 1-3 overall. He allowed three runs (two earned) and four hits over 3 1/3 innings. Levine and Foss both had two hits each to lead the Vikings at the plate.

The three-game SCC series concludes on Saturday (Mar. 21) at 12 p.m. back at Cerritos.