Long Beach St.-signee Jeff Yamaguchi hurled six strong innings in the opener and then kept up the heat on the Matadores with a two-run homer way over the leftfield fence in the first inning of the nightcap.
It continued a daylong trend of the lethal Lakewood lineup scoring with two outs. The Lancers' first two batters were retired on routine groundouts but a single and Yamaguchi's blast kept the Matadores on their heels. A three-run roundtripper, by 6-foot-3, 220-pound sophomore Jacob Worrell, broke open the contest in the fifth inning to make it 7-0.
The Matadores were without the services of senior rightfielder Karl Perez in the nightcap after he ran over the catcher at homeplate in the first game's sixth inning, the only one in which they scored over the course of the three games against Lakewood.
Junior designated hitter Nicko Lancaster stroked a one-out single to left, junior shortstop Andres Rodriguez walked and the team's RBI machine, senior Nick Mandry, drove in both with a hard double down the leftfield line.
Senior pinch-hitter Ray Chacon, after blasting a pinch-hit homer in his last at-bat two nights earlier, came through again as he entered the game with a rope to the leftcenter wall. Mandry scored, but Perez (who had walked) was gunned down at the plate with yet another terrific defensive play by Lakewood, freshman shortstop J.P. Crawford pegging a perfect relay play to the plate to nail Perez as he nailed the catcher (who did drift into the baseline).
Crawford and Zach Alofaituli both had three hits to power Lakewood in the opener, while La Mirada chalked up nine of their own, including two by Lancaster and Mandry.
Senior Alex Pedroza pitched very well to close out the first game, turning in perfect innings in the fifth and sixth and then, yep, allowing three two-out runs in the seventh.
Junior Jordan Rosenberg also had a fine outing in relief in the second game by getting his first four batters until, yep, giving up a two-out run in the seventh. He was assisted with two fine defensive plays in the sixth, one by junior thirdbaseman Nick Mata on a slow roller and Rodriguez deep in the hole to his right.
Sophomore Shane Watson, who shut down the Matadores in the second game of the season during the Loara Tournament, allowed just four hits in six innings of work.
One silver lining to the day was La Mirada turning the spigot off on the strikeouts. The squad struck out just three times over the course of the day, a huge improvement to the 46 totaled in the first five. However, hitting into six double plays, four in the finale, doomed the team's ample offensive chances.
