Baseball: Long Beach completes two-game sweep of Irvine Valley with 9-5 win at home

Sophomore Tai Tiedemann (Poly HS) went 3 for 5 with a pair of triples and 3 RBI to help lead Long Beach City College to a 9-5 non-conference win over visiting Irvine Valley College on Thursday at Joe Hicks Memorial Field. The Vikings swept a two-game series from the Lasers and improved to 6-5 overall.

Long Beach totaled 14 hits in the contest. LBCC also got big offensive games from freshman Tony Monroy (Warren HS) and sophomore Tanner Moore (Irvine HS). Monroy went 2 for 5 as he smacked a double and triple. He scored three times and drove in a run. Moore was 2 for 3 with a pair of walks, three runs, and a RBI.

LBCC starting pitcher Michael Hurtado (Warren HS) was cruising through three innings, as he retired the first nine batters he faced. But he got wild in the fourth as the Lasers went ahead without recording a hit. IVC took advantage of two hit batters, a walk, and a wild pitch to score twice and take a 2-0 lead.

But Long Beach scored three times in the fifth to take the lead for good. Freshman Gavin Windes' (St. John Bosco HS) sacrifice fly scored Moore to tie up the game before sophomore Jackson Foss' (Wilson HS) RBI single drove in Tiedemann to put LBCC ahead. Long Beach added two runs in the sixth and poured it on with four more in the seventh.

Hurtado (1-2) picked up his first win of the season after allowing two runs and just one hit over 5 1/3 innings. Sophomore Evan May (Oxford Academy) tossed 1 2/3 of scoreless relief before freshman Kyle Castillo (Seattle, WA/Chief Sealth HS) pitched a perfect eighth inning, but served up a two-out, three-run home run in the ninth.

Ryan Abady took the loss for Irvine Valley (5-5). He allowed five runs and eight hits over 5 2/3 innings.

Long Beach returns to action on Saturday (Feb. 27) at 12 p.m. when the Vikings travel to Orange Coast College to close out a three-game non-conference series. LBCC and OCC have split the previous two contests.