Baseball uses long ball at Cypress

The Saddleback baseball team took a 2-0 lead in the three-game series with Cypress with a 10-6 win on Thursday at Cypress.  The Bobcats used the long ball while Makani Tanaka extended his hitting streak.

Saddleback never trailed in the game, scoring three times in the top half of the first inning.  The Bobcats had two home runs in the inning, with Ben Castelli leading off the game with a solo shot to right field and J.C. Allen smashing a two-run homer to left field. 

Cypress put two runs on the board in the bottom half of the first inning but would get blanked for the next seven innings while the Saddleback offense was building up a big lead.  Zachary Allegro started on the mound for Saddleback and gave way to Tyler Byrns in the top half of the third inning.  Byrns was solid, pitching through the eighth inning in improving to 3-1 on the season.  Isaac Rodriguez and Camden Cisneros pitched the ninth inning in mop-up duty.  In total, Saddleback pitchers recorded seven strikeouts while surrendering only seven hits on the day.

The score remained 3-2 heading to the fifth inning when Saddleback struck for three more runs.  Again it was the long ball, with Bryson Hoier hammering a three-run homer over the right field wall to extend the lead to 6-2. 

Saddleback added a run in the seventh inning and had some drama in the eighth inning when Tanaka entered the batter's box with two runners on base but still looking for his first hit of the game in attempting to extend his season-long hitting streak to 35 games.  Tanaka gave the Saddleback faithful what they wanted, delivering a ball to the right field corner to score both Jacob Hudson and Castelli for a 9-2 lead.  Two batters later Jacob Beauchaine singled home Tanaka as the lead ballooned to 10-2.   

Hudson led the offense with three hits on the afternoon while Tanaka (pictured) finished 1-for-2 with two runs-scored and two RBI.

Saddleback improved to 22-13 overall and 10-7 in Orange Empire Conference play with the win.  The Bobcats moved into sole possession of second place in conference play with both Santa Ana and Fullerton losing on Thursday. 

Saddleback and Cypress will finish the three-game series at Saddleback on Saturday at 12:00 PM.