CHICO – For Cal State Dominguez Hills, Wednesday's game at No. 28 Chico State to open the CCAA Baseball Tournament immediately felt like a major-league wild card game.
Playing in an elimination game right off the bat to start Dominguez Hills' first postseason run in seven years, both sides were showing nerves at the start but it was the Toros who capitalized big on the Wildcats' bullpen woes with a six-run third inning followed by a veteran outing from Isaac Mullins that gave Dominguez Hills an 11-5 upset win over the host and advance to the final four.
The Toros can relax and breath for a moment as they will now play in the double-elimination format from this point on. The road will not be easy as they will take on the regular-season champions Cal State Monterey Bay Thursday at 11 a.m. The 10th-ranked Otters took 3-of-4 from the Toros in Carson last month.
It indeed looked to be nerves on the field as the Toros struggled defensively in the first inning which resulted in two runs for the 'Cats. A couple of miscommunication errors set the chess pieces and Chico executed using a two-run double to take a 2-0 lead.
The nerves seemed to have vanished in the second inning. With two outs, Kevin Moscoso doubles to the right field fence and on the very next pitch Matt Mecate lines a ground ball up the middle to score in Moscoso to slice the deficit in half.
After Mullins pitched a clean second inning, the Toros quickly went back to work and delivered in a big way for the southpaw. Emilio Barrera led off with a walk, Eric Smelko singled and Scott Ogrin drew a walk to load the bases. After a pitching change, Pierson Loska got an unlucky popup for the first out but Alberto Luevano picked him up with a 2-run single to give the Toros a 3-2 lead. Anthony Accordino singled to reload the bases and setup three straight walks to force in three runs to give the Toros a 6-2 lead. Barrera traded an out for a run with a ground out to make it 7-2. In that inning, the Wildcats needed four different pitches to collect three outs.
While the 'Cats got a run in their half of the fourth, the Toros saw Pierson Loska step up in the sixth inning, crushing a 1-0 pitch to left field for a 2-run shot to give Dominguez Hills a 9-3 lead.
After giving up that lone run in the third, Mullins kept the Wildcats' bats in check and was backed by a much improved defense. He ran into trouble in the seventh inning by loading the bases with two outs. Head coach Tyler Wright made perhaps a challenging decision by pulling out his left-handed ace and place the right-handed Carlos Bracamontes on the mound. It proved to be a great decision as Bracamontes struck out the batter to escape the jam and preserve the 9-3 lead.
Mullins had a strong outing in perhaps the program's ultimate test of the season thus far, going 6.2 innings with three runs on 10 hits and a walk on 87 pitches.
Barrera provided a little breathing room that wasn't necessarily needed in the eighth, a two-run jack to dead center field to make it 11-3.
