CHICO – The magical run through the CCAA Baseball Tournament for Cal State Dominguez Hills came to a heartbreaking end on Championship Saturday as Cal Poly Pomona scored four unanswered runs in the seventh to post an 8-5 win to clinch the title and the conference's automatic bid to NCAA Regionals next week.
After coming up just two wins short from clinching the ticket to regionals, the Toros' season ends at 27-26.
But the Toros have plenty to be proud of.
Dominguez Hills went 4-13 in its final 17 regular-season games and got into the CCAA Tournament as a No. 6 seed thanks to other results. But once they got into the postseason, that's when the Toros' run began that started with beating No. 28 Chico State in the 'play-in' game, upsetting the regular-season and top seed No. 10 Cal State Monterey Bay, lost the winner's bracket semifinal to the Broncos but bounced back and knocked out Cal State San Bernardino the following game to earn the right to face Cal Poly Pomona again on Saturday.
For his efforts in the five CCAA Tournament games he's played, highlighted by hitting .381 (8-for-21) with four home runs, including two that tied the tournament's single-game record, three doubles and nine RBIS, six of which also became a CCAA Tournament game record,
Scott Ogrin was awarded Co-Most Valuable Player in the playoff. He was joined by
Pierson Loska,
Humberto Chiquito and
Alberto Luevano on the CCAA All-Tournament team.
The Toros jumped ahead 1-0 in an aggressive way.
Eric Smelko led off with a single and Ogrin hit a big double to left. Smelko avoided the stop sign at third and luckily made it home while the throw was dropped by the catcher.
Dominguez Hills got a 3-0 lead when the CCAA's home run leader Ogrin and
Pierson Loska hit back-to-back jacks to start the third inning.
Though the Broncos answered back and scored four runs in the fourth, the Toros tied the game in their half of the inning when
Emilio Barrera lined out to center field for a sacrifice fly. The Toros made it a 5-4 lead in the sixth. Smelko would hit a single to left to score in an aggressive Mecate from second base. Mecate made a risky move trying to score on a ball hit to shallow left field, but the throw to home was offline and it allowed him to score the go-ahead run.
The lead was short lived and the Toros' energy became depleted when the Broncos put a four-spot in the seventh to take an 8-5 lead.
Damon Treadwell got the starting nod for the first time since March 12. He went 3.1 innings striking out just one batter.
Josh Castillo made his CCAA Tournament debut and also went the same distance as Treadwell, only he was charged for four runs. He did strikeout three.
Both sides had 25 hits recorded on the board. Dominguez Hills had a dozen of them.
