-Blade - Beat Writer Central Arizona College Baseball

(Douglas) - The two finals in the double header in Douglas Tuesday were 1-0, and 4-1 with Central winning both.

What does that tell you?

Not enough.

Two of the nation's top pitching staffs squared it off and in the end, they both proved they were just that.

In game one, hitting third, one of Ashtin Webb's two doubles went down the left field line and brought home lead-off hitter Sebastian Tomerlin in the top of the first for a 1-0 lead and that was the final score. From there on out, it was zeros and strikeouts, both ways. The Vaquero starter was Theo Millas who threw five and a third of remarkable in-control baseball while striking out five and giving up only three meaningless hits, and Josh Aribal closed out Cochise Community College by striking out three in the final inning and two thirds.

Aribal now has an astounding 20.63/9 strikeout ratio.

"Yes he very confident" said head coach Anthony Gilich.

I'll bet he his.

Where did they find this guy?

Oh yes, he's the brother of Central's utility man extraordinaire Matt who spent the last fews years at Signal Peak.

Millas is now 3-0 with an ERA of 0.67, one earned run in thirteen innings.

On the other side, Cochise pitcher Fernando Barreda, one the nation's best, struck out 11 Vaqueros, walked three, and took his first loss of the season.

Take a look, the man is in the top of the NJCAA stats.

As the head coach has always said, "you gotta find a way win those" and Central did it again in game two.

This time in game two, the Central starter was Tommy Brandenburg against Cochise's Evan Shaw, and it was Blake Avila driving in Tomerlin again in the top of the first for a 1-0 lead and it stayed that way through five innings.

Here's one for ya, Avila has twenty walks this year in thirteen games, a stat that stands by itself, at the top of the nation.

Brandenburg struck out a whopping 15 batters in eight innings to give him 26 overall and that's good for third in the nation, second is the Cochise game one starter Barreda. Jack Seward came on in relief in the ninth inning and earned a save, his second, and the two gave up only three hits. Central struck out sixteen and Cochise pitching matched that, but in games like this..."you gotta find ways to win these."

Shortstop Luke Thiel pounded one out of there for his first homerun of the year, is currently hitting .409, and Jonathon Hernandez drove in another run with a grounder, so you take what you can in games like this, just what these Vaqueros did.

"That was a big rbi groundout" said Gilich. "Avila had a great base running read on that play to score from third to make it 2-0."

In two very difficult conference double headers so far, Central pitching has given up a statement-making three runs. Against powerhouses, Pima and Cochise.

At 4-0 in conference play, the Vaqueros are at the top, Cochise is 0-2.