July 13, 2018 Pasadena, CA Brennan McKenzie (Cal Poly Pomona) hit a three-run home and a pair of RBI-singles, Drew Cowley (Cal Poly Pomona) doubled twice and drove in two runs and Cooper Williams (New Mexico St) hit a two-run double to lead the Arroyo Seco Saints to a 13-3 win over the Academy Barons tonight at Jackie Robinson Stadium. McKenzie's home run was the capstone to the Saints seven-run sixth inning that broke open a 5-2 game. All seven of the Saints runs in the inning were unearned, all coming after a runner reached on an error and another reached on a walk and two outs were recorded. Then Jack Smith (ASU) hit an RBI-single, a bases-loaded hit batsmen forced in a run, Cowley hit a two-run double and McKenzie hit his three-run blast to put the Saints up 12-2. Jacob Jenkins (MidAm Nazarene), who came in to pitch for the Saints to start the fifth inning in relief of starter Charles Peacock (Galveston JC), who allowed two runs on three hits over four innings while striking out two, was the beneficiary of the run support. Jenkins pitched three scoreless innings, stranding runners in scoring position in each frame before being relieved by JD Russomano (Corban), who pitched the last two innings, allowing one run but no hits, to close out the win. The Saints opened the scoring in the second inning when Dalton Ney (Lee) doubled and scored on a Bennett McCaskill (Dartmouth) RBI-single and, after the Barons scored two unearned runs in the top of the fourth inning, Arroyo Seco took the lead for good in their half of the fourth, scoring four times when Cowley led off with a double and scored on McKenzie's first RBI-single, Bryce Gray (Notre Dame) and McCaskill singled and scored on Williams' double, and Williams scored on a error to make the score 5-2. Jake Binder (Ithaca College) started on the mound for the Academy, notching five strikeouts in four innings, but allowed five runs on seven hits and suffered the loss. Click here for recaps of this game Elsewhere in the CCL today: Santa Barbara, CA Jackson Wolf (West Virginia) struck out six and Bryce Elder (Texas) struck out five in four-inning pitching stints and Luke Ritter (Wichita St) homered for the second day in a row to lead the Santa Barbara Foresters to a 4-2 win over the Orange County Riptide today at Pershing Park. The win, the 22nd against three losses this CCL season, assures Santa Barbara will finish the regular season with the best record in the league and clinches them the number one seed in the four-team single-elimination CCL Playoffs set for July 29-30 in Thousand Oaks. Wolf, one of the league's top pitching prospects this year, started true to form today by striking out four in two scoreless innings but ran into trouble in the third inning when Matthew Cooper (Clemson) hit a lead-off single and scored on a Aaron Simpson (Ball State) double with one out. Wolf righted things for a bit, retiring the last two batters of the third inning without incident and the first two batters of the fourth before walking three batters in a row to load the bases with two outs. Wolf escaped that situation unscathed by inducing a groundout to end the inning and turned the pitching duties over to Elder to start the fifth inning. Elder dominated early in his four-inning stint as well, retiring ten of the first eleven batters he faced before three consecutive one-out singles, including one for an RBI by Luke Bandy (Dallas Baptist). And, like Wolf before him, Elder limited the damage by retiring the next two batters in order and stranding a runner in scoring position. Ritter's home run, a solo shot in the first inning, opened the scoring for the Foresters and put an exclamation on what he did last night in Fullerton against this same team when he hit for the cycle. But unlike last night when Santa Barbara tallied 18 runs against the Riptide, they would have to grind out runs one at a time to win tonight. Hayden Pearce (Pacific), the starting pitcher for Orange County, except for Ritter's home run, held his own against the Foresters offense for the most part and was scuttled a bit by the defense behind him, allowing a single run in the third inning when Ryan Cash (Oklahoma St) singled and advanced to third on a two-base error and scored on an infield grounder, and another in the sixth when Ritter worked a leadoff walk, stole second base, advanced to third on an error and scored on Cam Warren's (Texas Tech) third single of the game. Chase Illig (West Virginia) scored the fourth and last run of the game for Santa Barbara after leading off the inning with a single, advancing to third on another Riptide two-base error before scoring on a Conor Davis (Auburn) RBI-single. Dane Acker (Rice) pitched a scoreless ninth inning to close out the win. San Luis Obispo, CA Jordan Chriss (Columbia) pitched five scoreless innings, Mario Lopez pitched four scoreless innings, Marco Murillo (Campbellsville) hit a two-run home run and Luc Lipcius (Tennessee) singled and scored the game-winning run in the twelfth inning to lead the San Luis Obispo Blues to a 3-2 win over the Southern California Catch tonight at Sinsheimer Park in a game that had to be delayed by an hour because the bus transporting the Catch lost two tires in route to the game and the team had to wait on the side of Highway 101 for a replacement bus to arrive and deliver them to the game. Chriss started on the mound for the Blues, struck out five and scattered four hits before turning the pitching duties over to the bullpen. San Luis got on the scoreboard first when Murillo hit his home run in the second inning, driving in Conagher Sands (Cal Poly) who had reached base on a fielder's choice. Murillo's homer was the second and last hit the Blues would get until the eleventh inning when Dane Stankiewicz (Grand Canyon), who had also singled in the first, and Slade Heggen (Gonzaga) singled but could not score the winning run. Caleb Bly (Oklahoma Baptist) was the starting pitcher for the Catch, throwing six innings with seven strikeouts and two walks, retiring 14 of the last 16 batters he faced and being replaced on the mound trailing 2-1 after the Catch scored once in the sixth inning when Jacob Rogers (UNLV) singled with one out and David Martinez (Austin Peay) doubled him home with two outs. Gabe Constantine, who came into pitch to start the sixth inning in relief of Chriss, struck out four in three innings of work and was on the mound when the Catch tied the score in the seventh when two errors put runners on the corners and a sacrifice fly made the score 2-2. Lopez pitched the last four innings for the Blues, retiring twelve of the 14 batters he faced and striking out six to earn the win. Declan Kearney (Azusa Pacific) was equally as good as Lopez over the same number of innings, striking out six over four scoreless, but in his fifth inning of work, the twelfth inning, Lipcius led off with a single, stole second base, advanced to third on an error and, after Kearney struck out his seventh batter and an intentional walk setup a potential inning-ending double-play, Matt Anderson (Georgia Southern) pinch-hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Lipcius and give the Blues a walk-off win. Click here for recaps of this game