TURLOCK -- Cal State LA's baseball enjoyed the best offensive day of the season in a California Collegiate Athletic Association series finale against Stanislaus State on Sunday.
The Golden Eagles collected a season-high 17 hits, including three home runs, in a 9-5 win over the Warriors at Warrior Baseball Field. Cal State LA (7-11, 4-4 CCAA) earned a series split with Stanislaus State (10-12, 5-7 CCAA) after winning the last two games of the four-game series.
Isaiah Marquez,
Alberto Prado and
Kai Penuelas hit home runs for the Golden Eagles and all nine batters in the starting lineup had at least one hit. Prado and
Kadyn Victorian had three hits each, while
Malik Clayton,
Cesar Chavez, Javy Espinosa and Penuelas had two hits each.
Lino Zepeda pitched six strong innings to pick up the first win of his Cal State LA career. He gave up four hits and one earned run with three walks and four strikeouts.
Atticus Gonzalez gave up two hits and two runs in 1 1/3 innings,
Joel Martinez got the final two outs of the eighth inning and
Ismael Quintero allowed two hits and one run to finish the game in the ninth.
Cal State LA jumped out to a 4-0 lead after five innings. The Golden Eagles scored twice in the first inning on a run-scoring single by Chavez and a sacrifice fly by Prado and extended their lead with solo home runs from Penuelas in the fourth inning and Prado in the fifth.
After Stanislaus State got two runs in the sixth to make it 4-2, the Golden Eagles got those runs back in the seventh. Marquez homered and Penuelas reached on an infield single while Prado came around to score on a throwing error to make it 6-2.
Stanislaus State cut the margin to 6-4 in the eighth, but Martinez got out of the inning with a double-play ball and Cal State LA added three more runs in the top of the ninth.Â
Ethan Gonzalez reached on an infield single and Chavez doubled him to third. Espinoza then delivered a two-run double to make it 8-4 and Victorian singled in Espinoza to make it 9-4.
Quintero allowed a run in the ninth, but got the last two batters to fly out to end the game.
Cal State LA will return to action next Friday with the start of a four-game series against San Francisco State.