Pasadena City College baseball head coach Pat McGee achieved his milestone 200th career victory as the Lancers split two non-conference games at Merced on March 27-28. The Lancers blanked the Blue Devils, 8-0, on Thursday to open the 2-game series.
McGee accomplished the 200-win mark in just eight full seasons, one shortened pandemic 21-game year in 2020, and 24 games into his 10th season running the PCC baseball program.
More remarkable is he collected just 23 wins the first two seasons in 2015-16 in trying to establish a new outlook on the program that prior to McGee's hiring was a perennial doormat in the South Coast Conference since PCC joined the league in 1987.
Since 2017, McGee has a successful record of 177-111, a .614 winning percentage.
In that time, he has coached PCC to two South Coast championships in 2017 and 2019, and he has directed the Lancers to six consecutive appearances in the Southern California Regional Playoffs. Just last week, two of his former players appeared in Major League Baseball Spring Training games in Philadelphia Phillies' prospect Raider Tello (2022, PCC Men's Athlete of the Year, All-American) and Toronto Blue Jays' pitcher Nate Garkow (2018 Lancers, All-SCC First Team).
McGee was the 2016-17 SCC Coach of the Year for all men's sports and he has sent 59 players to 4-year university programs.
In the win v. Merced, the team's seventh straight triumph, catcher Joaquin Salcedo ripped his sixth home run, a 2-shot in the third inning to left center, then centerfielder Tyler Garcia launched his team-leading seventh HR, also a 2-run drive in the fifth.
Leftfielder Thomas Villanueva batted 2-for-2 with two walks and a double while Salcedo, Garcia and first baseman Adrian Roman each delivered two hits. Hugo Tafoya (4-1) pitched five innings of 4-hit ball and Aiden Nunez (save) hurled four innings of 2-hit relief as they combined for the shutout.
The Lancers saw that win streak snapped on Friday in an 8-3 loss to Merced. Shortstop Bryan Richman (double), second baseman Omar Cisneros (double), and rightfielder Devon Eskridge each had two hits. Salcedo roped a double off the center field fence as a pinch hitter in the eighth.
On March 25, PCC belted 22 hits and routed Victor Valley, 24-3, at Brookside Park's Jackie Robinson Field. Third baseman Devin Munoz batted 4-for-5 with two doubles, Eskridge was 2-for-3 with two doubles and two RBI, Garcia hit 3-for-4 with four runs scored and two ribbies, Roman went 3-for-5, catcher Evan Nahra was 2-for-5 with a solo home run, designated hitter Brandon Gill drove in 3 RBI, Villanueva and Cisneros picked up two hits a piece, and backups Jacob Escamilla and Thomas Mesa added extra-base hits. Escamilla slugged a 3-run triple and Mesa belted a 2-run double.
Isaac Ton pitched his first game of the season, recording the mound victory on 5.1 innings, allowing six hits, three runs and no walks. Sergio Robles pitched 2.2 of scoreless relief and Colton Murillo closed it out with a shutout ninth.
On Tuesday, April 1, PCC returns to South Coast play to begin a 3-game series v. Long Beach City College in a road contest (2 p.m.).