CHICO – Baseball has its magical and mysterious moments. A bit of both showed at Chico State's Nettleton Stadium Thursday as a three-run ninth-inning rally lifted Cal State Dominguez Hills to a 5-4 come-from-behind win over regular-season champions Cal State Monterey Bay to stay in the winner's bracket of the CCAA Championship.
The Toros will enjoy the rest of the day off and wait for the winner of No. 2 Cal Poly Pomona and No. 5 Cal State San Bernardino to meet them Friday at 3 p.m.
Down 3-2 in the ninth inning, the Toros got a huge inning-opening spark from
Matt Mecate, who barely beat the tag at second for a double.
Caleb Ellis laid down an good sacrifice bunt to move the tying run to third.
Emilio Barrera was hit by the pitch and
Eric Smelko came up clutch with an RBI single and set runners at the corners.
With two down,
Pierson Loska hit a catchable fly ball to left field to inning, but the fielder made a costly mistake on the run that forced him to drop the ball and allow both Barrera and Smelko to score and give the Toros a 5-3 lead.
Monterey Bay had the door knocking in its half of the ninth. Having loaded the bases with one out, the Otters got a run on a sacrifice fly to Smelko but the center fielder wisely threw to third to keep the tying run at second base.
Donovan Waitman came in for
Carlos Bracamontes, who was brilliant in relief, and pitched a swing-and-a-miss strikeout to hype up the dugout in celebration to end the game.
Dylan Steen pitched perhaps the best outing he's had in 14 starts, given that it's in the postseason and knowing that it's a fresh start for the senior. He went 5.2 innings with three strikeouts and allowing nine hits and three walks.
Zachariah McCorvey came in the sixth and pitched 2.1 hitless innings despite allowing just one run on a walk to start the ninth inning. Bracamontes and Waitman shared the ninth-inning duty to preserve the win.
Both sides collected 10 hits on the day.
