The comment from last year keeps coming back.

"We have to figure out ways to win games like this."

There were a few troubling last minute losses early last year when the head coach said this, and by the end of the year the Vaqueros had learned a lot. Central Arizona College held a slim lead for eight innings yesterday in a tight baseball game.

Nick Cheema hit a sacrifice fly, Nate Young and Luke Schwartz each drove in a run apiece, and Central had a 3-0 lead going into the ninth inning. With a couple of walks and a couple of hits in the top of the ninth, the Wolfpack from Madison College in Wisconsin had tied the game at three. 

"We gave up the lead for the first time in a while, but I was happy we responded right away in the bottom half to get the win" said the head coach Anthony Gilich.

Ernny Ordonez pinch hit for a leadoff single past third, and Brennan Reback walked. After a wild pitch, both runners advanced. With the infield playing in, Liam Spence hit a grounder to short and was thrown out with runners not able to advance.

"Any time Alix Garcia is up with a chance to win, you feel pretty good about it and he came through with the game winner."

Garcia bounded one through short and third and Central won a tough one Thursday afternoon.

Madison College finished their season opening spring trip at 3-7 with this loss.

In his first start of the year, Avery Jones started and threw the first four innings with shutout baseball striking out five batters and giving up only three hits.

"Avery did a heck of a job in his first college start" said Gilich.

"Standley had an unbelievable three middle innings with eight k's. Dabo looked great as well."

Joe Standley threw the scoreless middle three giving up three singles and struck out eight out of a possible nine outs. They walk back to the dugout with their heads down nearly twice an inning when he is throwing. Standley has 29 strikeouts in 20 innings pitched this year for an ERA of 1.35.

Notes:

-For the just the second time this year, Central didn't record an extra base hit. BUT!! They stole six more bases. On this team, when runners reach, they might as well be extra base hits as they lead the country with 94 stolen bases.

-Blade had Arizona to win it all. I believed Jay Bilas when he said to watch out for this team because of it's bigs. Pfffft.

-The Vaqueros rest up for a few days with the home stretch of the final 24 conference games a-coming. Central is now 26-5 and ranked as high as number 2 in the country in JUCO baseball. Perfectgame.org has recently ranked Central Arizona College at #4.

-Blade