Glendale comes from behind to beat Santa Barbara; hosts San Diego Mesa in second round May 9-11

It was billed as a matchup of the solid pitching of Santa Barbara City College against the explosive hitting from Glendale College and at the end of two days of play and over 12 hours of baseball, it was the hometown Vaqueros who got the best of the visiting Vaqueros in the best two out of three games in a first round CCCAA matchup. Santa Barbara won the series opener 10-4 Friday with GCC coming back to win both games Saturday 16-2 and 4-3 to advance to a second round playoff matchup Thursday to Saturday May 9-11 against visiting San Diego Mesa.

After getting drubbed in the series opener Friday 10-4, GCC entered Saturday determined to get off them at and they did in a big way pounding out 18 hits in the 16-2 win with Trent MacKinney, Hans Seo and Michael Choi each getting three hits with Brandon Lewis, Seo and Choi each going deep. But the biggest an tallest story of the game was the pitching performance of 6-foot-five inch Kevin Holcomb who has been the GCC closer for most of the season but turned in a 8 1/3 inning 136 pitch gem as he allowed just seven hits and struck out eight.

The strength of Holcomb's outing allowed Glendale to save Dexter Wilkerson for the third game and the WSC East Pitcher of the Year did not disappoint after coming into the game in the third inning in relief of starter Kyle Nicol and the GCC Vaqs leading 4-2. Wilkerson allowed just four hits and one run in his seven innings of work to improve to 11-2 this season and send his happy but exhausted teammates into another home series against San Diego Mesa.

The game times are slated to be Thursday and Friday May 9-10 at 2 pm at Stengel Field and Saturday May 11 at 1 pm