-Blade Contributing writer Central Arizona College Baseball

(Signal Peak) - It's a split on Saturday at the Big House, but it felt like a sweep.

"That was probably his best outing of the year" said head coach Anthony Gilich of game one starter Mat Olsen.

"Absolutely dominating."

Olsen truly did dominate, he had 12 sit-downs and gave up one hit through the first six innings in game one of the double-header Saturday against Yavapai Community College. The thing is, Yavapai starter Declan Dutton had a pretty nice start himself.

The score was 0-0 after five full innings of play.

It's a pitchers duel.

For most of the game.

But the last two innings were a shootout.

Dutton threw a scoreless four and a third before being relieved and in the bottom of the sixth, Central got to reliever Tyler Davis for two runs to take a 2-0 lead going into the top of the seventh.

"He had thrown 75 pitches in the game" said Gilich about Olsen.

"He was going to finish this game."

In the Yavapai top of the seventh, Olsen got one out, but gave up his first homerun of the year to Noah Turley.

"He's one of the best hitters in the conference" continued Gilich.

"They (Yavapai) did a good job in that inning."

Yavapai also doubled in the inning and ended up scoring four times off Olsen and reliever Drew Sommers to take a 4-2 lead heading to the bottom of the seventh.

The Vaqueros answered yet again with a JD McLaughlin double, Dayton Dooney rbi single and a wild pitch which scored two runs to send it to the eighth inning with the score tied 4-4.

Yavapai then scored five runs in the top of the eighth off of Sommers and DJ Carpenter and the lead was 9-4 going to the bottom of the eighth.

Yavapai won game one 9-7 and here's why this one felt like a win.

Central scored one to make the score 9-5 in the bottom of the eighth, and with two outs, Central got a Seth Beckstead infield single plus walks to Vinnie Lagatta and Preston Godfrey, then McLaughlin ripped a single up the middle to score two to make it 9-7.

Zack Stewart then was hit by a pitch to load the bases and Kiko Romero "just murdered" a line drive into left field at the fence that the left-fielder caught in the tip of his glove.

"No doubt in my mind that would have cleared the bases" said Gilich.

Game two was all Central.

Gilich had a speak with the team in between games.

"I almost never do this but I got on 'em" said Gilich.

"This second game was probably the most important game of the year so I challenged them."

How about a no-hitter and an 11-0 win for a response?

Starter Liam Evans threw up four straight zeros without giving up a hit, and Leo Palacios entered in the fifth inning, struck out the side, and it's a five-inning no-hitter.

"Leo needed the work" said Gilich.

It's a bit of a pressure when your starter throws no-no and you're the reliever. You can't respond any better than by throwing only two balls and whiffing three straight batters.

Romero hit a grand slam in the second inning and Central scored in all four frames to win 11-0 in a five inning run-rule game.

There is no record available for this (at least I didn't bother to check, because there just can't be)...but Preston Godfrey was hit by the first pitch in each game Saturday.

The Vaqueros have a regular season title magic number of one. One win against either Eastern Arizona or Cochise in the final two series will give Central the home field advantage for the upcoming regionals.

There is a modified play-off system this year in the ACCAC due to Covid concerns.

There will be two brackets and all seven D1 teams playing in the regionals. Each bracket winner plays each other in a best two-of three to advance to the district finals.

If everything goes well for Central, they could be at the Big House all the way up to the JUCO World Series.

Now forget about that and let's enjoy the seasons final two series!

Central hits the road for two at Eastern Arizona Tuesday and the regular season ends Saturday with visiting Cochise.