POMONA, CA – The High Desert Heat (11-17, 4-15) defeated the Inland Valley Pirates (10-10, 8-9) 7-4 Wednesday afternoon at Cal Poly Pomona in a complete team performance.
Every Heat starter recorded at least one hit.
In the top of the second inning, High Desert grabbed a 1-0 lead behind Jack Collingsworth’s RBI single.
The Heat added four more runs in the third inning as they strung together five consecutive hits. Sergio Lujan led it off with a single and Chris Solis followed in suit. Aaron Cisneros blasted a two-run double. Christian Fillingame ripped an RBI double. Alex Pollard made it 5-0 on an RBI single.
The Heat tacked on one more run in the fourth as Ronnie Leon cranked an RBI double scoring Connor Garrison.
The Pirates answered with a three-run bottom of the fourth to cut the deficit in half to 6-3. A.J. David knocked in Grady Espinosa. Blake James brought home David and Christian Kelley on a two-run double.
High Desert went right back to work scoring another run in the sixth to increase the lead to 7-3 on an RBI by Lujan.
Inland Valley chipped away at the lead once more in the bottom of the sixth when Kelley belted in David to make it 7-4, but that was as close as the Pirates would get.
Thomas McCarty pitched eight strong innings for the Heat and Michael Pamaran picked up the save.
Brett Early worked a solid final two innings striking out four, while not allowing any runs. Kevin Glomb recorded five strikeouts in three innings, while allowing one unearned run.
High Desert has finished with league play, but will take on the House of Hardball Hitmen on Friday. The Pirates will host the Legends on Friday in a tripleheader of sorts. The first game starting at 1 p.m. will be a completion of the 10-inning game that was tied up at 6 apiece before being called due to darkness. The normally scheduled doubleheader will follow. The live broadcast of the first two games will be heard on sccbaseball.com.