The Pasadena City College baseball team finished the regular season as Co-South Coast Conference North Division champions and earned the #15 seed in the Southern California Regional Playoffs. The Lancers now host a Play-in Round game v. #18 Citrus College on Tuesday, April 30 at Brookside Park's Jackie Robinson Memorial Field. Game time is 2:30 p.m.
PCC's second SCC title in three years under head coach Pat McGee helped the Lancers earn a bevy of honors on the 2019 All-South Coast Conference Team. Sophomore righthanded pitcher Gordon Ingebritson, the school's all-time wins leader with 13 in his two seasons, became the first PCC hurler ever to be named SCC Pitcher of the Year. Ingebritson is 6-3 this season with a 3.05 ERA and team highs in strikeouts (69) and innings pitched with 85-2/3. Freshman centerfielder Gabriel Arellano, second in the state in hits with his school-record 71, was selected Co-North MVP with Mt. San Antonio shortstop Michael Sandoval.
Arellano, who is batting .397 with a school-record 44 runs scored, is the second Lancers MVP in their conference history (since 1988). The other is Jeremy Conant, a first baseman who won the award in 2017 and now is a junior at Cal Poly Pomona.
Other All-SCC First Team selections from PCC were freshman third baseman Marco Martinez, the PCC's single-season walks leader who is batting .338 and leads the team in home runs (five), RBI (37) and on-base percentage (.500), sophomore transfer catcher Cole Pilar, who is hitting .336 with 31 RBI. Making All-SCC North Second Team were 2-time award winners in leftfielder Edward Manzo (.295, nine doubles, 19 RBI) and shortstop Ryan Lewis (.308, 26 RBI). Also making Second Team was single-season wins record holder and sophomore pitcher Patrick Pena (8-3, 2.82 ERA) and relief pitcher Lorenzo Llorens (3-1, 2.88 ERA). In all, the Lancers had eight players receive All-SCC recognition.
Pasadena (24-13 record) hosts a postseason game for the first time since 2017 and faces a red-hot Citrus team that won an amazing five straight games last week, including sweeping a non-conference doubleheader on Saturday v. Mt. San Jacinto. The Owls are 19-19-1, significant because they needed all five of their victories to make the playoffs as an automatic qualifier for finishing in second place in the Western State Conference East Division. Had Citrus not finished .500 overall, it would have prevented it from qualifying as there is a rule that teams must have a .500 record or better to qualify for the postseason.
If PCC defeats Citrus, it will play at #2 seed El Camino College (32-6, SCC South Division Co-Champions) in a best 2-of-3 game series, beginning on Friday, May 3.