Gordon Ingebritson put his bid in for All-South Coast Conference, pitching a brilliant 2-hit, complete game as the Pasadena City College baseball team kept its postseason chances alive with a 3-1 victory over Chaffey Thursday at Brookside Park's Jackie Robinson Field.
PCC improved to 19-17 overall and upped its conference record to 10-8. The Lancers are one game behind East Los Angeles (12-7) for second place in the SCC North Division, and a half game behind Chaffey (11-8). PCC holds a tie-breaker over ELAC and if the Lancers beat host Chaffey on Saturday, April 21 in the rubber game of their 3-game series, they will have that advantage over the Panthers.
Ingebritson pitched the most effective start in the four seasons under head coach Pat McGee, according to pitching coach Nico Calderaro. The Lancers assistant said the right-hander fired first-pitch strikes to 28 of the 30 batters he faced. Out of 116 pitches, Ingebritson threw 80 strikes.
The redshirt transfer freshman struck out five of the first nine batters, retiring 11 straight before giving up a double in the fourth inning to Chaffey leftfielder Seamus Fallon. In the sixth, he gave up a single and that runner was promptly erased when catcher Matt Orozco gunned out Andy Otterson trying to steal.
In the ninth, Ingebritson came within an out of a shutout, but issued his only walk of the game to Otterson. The next batter Evan Rice lifted a fly ball to center that was dropped by PCC outfielder John Bicos. Otterson scored on the error. Ingebritson (6-4 record) got Fallon to fly out to left to end it. The Village Christian High product finished facing just 4 batters above the minimum, striking out eight.
While Bicos cost his teammate the shutout, he did break a scoreless tie in the sixth with a RBI triple to right-center that scored shortstop Jose Jimenez, who reached on an error. The hot-hitting Edward Manzo, the team's leftfielder, ripped a 2-out, single to center to score Bicos for what proved to be the game-winning RBI. In the seventh, second baseman Ryan Lewis added a RBI single.
Another hitter on a binge of late is third baseman Nico Martinez, who batted 2-for-3. The sophomore is 8-for-his-last-22 and has been stellar defensively at the hot corner. His 22 RBI is tied with Shue to lead PCC.
On April 17 on the road, the Lancers were beat by Chaffey, 10-6, as Manzo was 3-for-5 with three RBI. The freshman leads the team in overall batting with a .360 average. He tops the squad in on-base percentage (.421), slugging percentage (.495), triples (five), and is tied with Jimenez for the team lead in stolen bases (six). In conference games, Manzo is even better with a .441 average and 16 RBI in 18 SCC games.